Stars on the Floor
by Arkytal
Summary: Killing Floor x Lucky Star crossover A strain of the Horzine virus is accidentally unleashed five years later in the streets of Japan.
1. Prologue: Nothing can go Wrong

Stars on the Floor  
>Prologue<br>"Nothing can go wrong"

DJS_

Bloody zombies. You know, when the United Nations decides to nuke the arse off of Britain to get rid of those Horzine freaks, you'd think they would've gotten them all. As I came to find out starting on December 22, 2012, they didn't. Or rather, they didn't get all the scientists. Oh, they turned every last one of those "zeds" into ash, but they didn't get every scientist. Ol Arisoto escaped the country before the shit hit the fan. What everyone DIDN'T know, however, was that he took a sample of the virus and put it in a tiny vial and lodged it in his stomach. When he left Britain, he made his way back to his homeland of Japan, where he retired to a quiet life at the shrine his family owned. This would've been fine and dandy, if not for the fact that the bastard got ran over at midnight the 22nd. The vial smashed, releasing the Horzine virus back into the world.

But where are my manners? You're probably wondering just who I am. If you're lucky, you might even remember me from the last go round. It's me, Scully. DJ Scully. You know, gas mask. Music bag full of goodies. 'Course, all that got confiscated after I made it out and took a Skidoo across the English Channel. Scared the bloody hell out of the Danes, that's for sure. I got vaccinated, and then got a one way ticket to Tokyo. I had some friends who ran a club in Saitama, and we set up shop and had a grand old time. After SHTF again, I'm alone again. And this time, I don't even have my gun. See, the gun control laws in Japan actually, ya know, control the guns. There's basically NOTHING to salvage into a projectile weapon around here. I'm holed up in a 3rd floor apartment waiting for the coast to be clear. I managed to find a tire iron in a closet of this fine lady's house, but she won't be needing it now. She's got four too many limbs and one too many knife wounds, to put it nicely.

KH_

One of the hardest things to do is to get the three biggest airheads you know to study, especially when mid-terms are coming up soon. I coaxed Konata, Tsukasa, and Misao into coming over my house to have a study session, with the condition that they could have some of the cookies Ayano-san made for me. After that it was just a matter of herding them into my room and locking the door. It's easier said than done. Now I'm just helping them all on quadratic equations, because it seems I'm the only person who pays attention in school.

"Kagami, is it –c radical 2c – 4 ab over 2a or –a radical 2a – 4 bc over 2a?"

Huge mental facepalm. But I AM the one who cajoled them into this. Maybe I shouldn't have done it so close to Christmas. Today is the 20th after all. Suppressing a grimace, I recited the correct formula.

"It's neither. The correct formula is –b +- radical b^2 -4ac over 2a."

All I got for my efforts there were three slack jawed idiots and a meow from a cell phone. Misao meatball-dived for it, hitting herself in the face with it as she answered it.

"Hey! Yeah, I'll be home soon. No, I was studying at Hiiragi's place. No, studying, not goofing off. Fine, I'll be home soon." Click goes the cell phone.

Misao turned to face us, only slightly red in the face.

"Well, looks like it's my time to de_part_."  
>She said the 2nd syllable of depart in such a way that Konata burst out laughing. Misao glared at her appropriately. "Got something to say, squirt? Maybe how you'll never be tall enough to ride on rollercoasters?" Ouch. Misao had a point there. "No, just the way your fang makes words slur", Konata replied with a grin on her face.<p>

Five minutes of terrible puns later, Misao left and Tsukasa had fallen asleep, leaving just myself and Konata, and she had no intention on going back to her homework. She asked me as we were walking back to my room,

"Doesn't it feel like nothing can go wrong?" I stopped. "What do you mean?" She just looked back at me with a thoughtful face. "You know, like life is just one big happy place and nothing bad can happen and how everything will work out in the end?" Okay, now she's just talking weird. Time to put a stop to that. Cynical existential mode activates!

"No, Konata, it doesn't. People die every day. Accidents happen. Disease exists. Domestic abuse exists. Rape happens. And don't even SAY that's it. Remember five years ago, when the UN voted on the destruction of Great Britain? And how it was approved? Konata, that whole country was quarantined and its populace systematically killed. THEN they bombed the entire island into an unrecognizable nuclear wasteland of ash and storm clouds. You're going to tell me that the death of over a million people can occur and you still say that it's one big happy world? The world will eat you up and spit out a corpse if you don't watch yourself Konata. Anyways, shouldn't you be getting home now?"

Konata shook herself from the dumbfounded trance she had while she listened to me lecture her about how many flaws her ideal had. As she left, she called out to me, "Kagami, you're right. On the big scale of things, the world is messed up. But on the small scale, here in Japan, things are alright. Nothing can go wrong immediately that will change the status quo. Anyways, I'm leaving. Tell Tsukasa I said good-bye!"

Woah. I'm surprised she even knew what status quo meant. I thought about it some more before I fell asleep later that night. She had a point though. Even though the world economy was, in general, in the shitter, Japan and even most of Asia was doing okay. Teen pregnancy rates were down, crime rates were down, the yen was rising in value again, and life expectancy was higher than ever. I don't know, but there was just something subconsciously telling me not to get too comfortable, almost like something is about to happen. But that's just silly. I mean, nothing _serious_ will go wrong, right?

_  
>AN: And BAM! The prologue for Stars on the Floor is done! I'm redoing it in its entirely, thanks to my own self telling me this was terrible, and DoubleBoxEven pointing out the glaringly obvious flaws in it. It's a little short, at just 1,081 words, but it gets the two main characters out there. I really enjoy the Kagami POV, because I always felt she's secretly a sadist who just throws on a disguise for her own sake. Scully is going to be pretty integral for this, for he is the MacGyver for the gang's "shit shit shit what the hell do we do" mentality. Scully's bit actually occurs a couple of days after Kagami's piece, but I needed to set the tone. Anyways, hope you enjoyed, I'm going to get the next part out as asap! Next chappy still won't be SHTF time though.


	2. The Monotony

Stars on the Floor  
>Chapter 1<br>"The Monotony"

KH_

Today is December 21, 2012. It's a Friday, and something feels off. Not anything wrong with the day itself, it just feels weird that right now, somewhere, people are killing each other, and all we're doing is sitting here in school learning about the Han Dynasty. I never really understood how people could be cruel enough to each other in order to survive. Sure, we have self-preservation instincts, but I'd like to think that we wouldn't cast another away, at least, not easily.

Have you ever seen the first episode of Highschool of the Dead? Pair of "best friends" is trying to escape, and one of them gets grabbed. The other one doesn't even try to help, just kicks her "best friend" in the face, then runs. She dies 10 seconds later, so I guess karma's a bitch. Hey look, lunch time! Yay. More time with sis and Konata and Miyuki. I'd never be able to forsake them for my own survival….at least….I hope not.

I went into the neighboring classroom and sat down with my best friends. We didn't really talk about much, but it's spending time with your friends that counts. Konata did the best Misao-dive ever when she dropped her choco cornet. She grabbed it in the crook of her knee without crushing it. I think she might be a ninja. Best part was when she sat down so nonchalantly and resumed eating and talking about the Diebusters OVA as though nothing had happened. Freaky.

Anyways, now it's almost the end of the day, and since it was the Friday before Christmas, nothing was really going on. I was counting the number of dots on the ceiling. Five hundred and eighty-one, if you wanted to know. Misao and Ayano were discussing their plans for the weekend. Not much, coincidentally. Misao was visiting some relatives in the country, and Ayano was going to a Kendo tournament. Ayano is a martial arts nut. She even keeps a katana in her house. I wouldn't doubt it if she slept with it. Maybe that's why her hair is so uneven….

And there's the last bell! Nothing interesting happened between then and right before I planned on going to bed. I was on the computer, playing an FPS Konata got us to play. She didn't need to convince me, but Miyuki and Tsukasa rather. I played as an artillery unit, Miyuki played a sniper, Konata was a flag capper, and Tsukasa was a base technician. It was pretty fun, but it just reminded me of how we can sit around and while the night away, while people are just plain not surviving the night, due to disease or fighting or cancer or whatever. I took my headset off by this point, and as I made my way to bed, I could have sworn that I had heard a scream in the distance. But it must have been my imagination.

After all, it's after 1 A.M. I've been awake for almost a full 20 hours. I started to think as I nodded off to sleep. What is the meaning of friendship? Why do I enjoy spending time with my friends? Are they really, truly supportive of me? Or would they drop me and leave me behind if they were faced with a difficulty associated with being around me? I doubt myself too much, I think. I need to think happy thoughts instead. Like how the next volume of Hetalia comes out next week. Or how I don't have any homework this weekend. Yeah, that's actually making me smile. Wow, have I really become as lazy as Konata? Hold it, self. That will NEVER happen. Even if I lose a limb or two, I'd think I'd be able to get up and go to the fridge easier than she can. And let's not forget about Tsukasa. She's so lazy too. But I think that more has to do with being an air-head than being lazy. She means well, she's just not the brightest lightbulb in the drawer.

Wait. How can I say that about my own sister? Doesn't she mean more to me than that? I wouldn't say the same thing about Miyuki. Or Ayano. No, of course not. Everyone is special in their own way. And for some, that's just being the cute lil airhead. Alright self, you can shut up now. You really need some sleep right now, because that scream from before just happened again.

I sat up right quick. I just realized. That wasn't me. Someone was screaming outside. I rushed over to the window and threw it open, revealing it to not be a single scream, but a chorus of painful wailing.

"GET IT OFF ME!" I couldn't see in the inky blackness of the night, but it sure as hell sounded like someone, or multiple someone's were being attacked. Then I heard it.

RRRRRRRRIP. "AGH!" The bloodcurdling scream changed in pitch to a raspy gurgling, almost like its vocal chords had been severed.

And then it was silent. I waited, but nothing else was heard. I closed the window, locked both the window and the door to my room, climbed in bed, and pulled the covers over my head. I fell asleep in the fetal position. What in the Kami's name was that?

A/N: And that's the real 1st chapter, in the oh-so-fun Kagami POV! Kagami, my dear girl, THAT is a Crawler. Nasty little blighters. Our dear Kagami is decidedly unattached to just about everybody except her friends, and has some awesome internal monologues while making the time go away. And for the purposes of this story, the Hiiragi household is on the outskirts of Saitama, where they actually have a decent sized lawn (:O), with the Izumi's slightly further in the city, and the Takara's also in the outskirts, albeit in a different section. The current body count is:

Zeds: 1  
>LS gang: 0<br>KF gang: 1

Scully and Kagami will be the 2 primary POV's, but I've already worked out an Ayano POV for at least a couple chapters, which is even less sane than this decidedly "not entirely there" Kagami. I know exactly where I'm going with this, and the HotD reference is a big hint. :D


	3. Crunchy

Stars on the Floor  
>Chapter 2<br>Crunchy 

**-KH: 10:30 A.M.**

I awoke to the feeling of Tsukasa gripping my arm like I was a teddy-bear. I already knew something was wrong, and I remembered the events of last night. Those screams. Not good.

"What's the matter Tsukasa? Why are you over here?" We share a room because, long story short, basalmic vinegar can be VERY acidic if mixed with pond water. Back to the potentially delicate situation unfolding all over my pyjamas. Yeah, she's crying on me. Or weeping? Expelling moisture from her tear ducts, alright?

"I couldn't sleep Kagami...I heard screams all night, they got louder and there were more of them, so I kind of curled up on you and tried to block it out." Damnit, now she's giving me the puppy-dog eyes. I got up and pulled the shades back so I could see out the open window. I kind of wish I hadn't. There was a fire belching out the side of a tower on the skyline, and there was smoke rising from various points in the city, and the acrid smell of burnt meat was overpowering. I leaned out and puked all over our lawn, which I should probably note is dead. It wasn't dead last night. Terrific.

After I was done heaving my Pocky all over the place while hearing more prolific screaming, some rather close too, I closed the window and hugged Tsukasa tight. I'm more concerned with what happened then why. I grabbed my cell phone from the bedside table and called Miyuki. It picked up on the first ring.

"Hello?" It wasn't Miyuki; it was a very quiet voice, and at first I thought I dialed the wrong number, but it was on Speed Dial. "Is anyone there?" Quiet voice now sounds scared. Wow, I'm terrible.

"Oh, sorry, this is Hiiragi Kagami. Can I talk to Miyuki-san?"

Awkward pause...

"I'm sorry, she's busy in the bathroom for a moment." Okay, that was weird. Something's up.

"I'm sorry, I never got your name, miss...?" Step one of Truth Extraction initiated!

"My name is Iwasaki Minami. I apologize for not stating it previously. I'm a first-year at Ryoo High. Miyuki-san should be done within a minute, if you wish to stay on the line she'll pick up soon." As she said this a banging sound could be heard, like someone hitting a door with all their weight. I also heard a gutteral moan, sort of like something out of a bad monster movie; not quite dead, but not human either.

Except, that sound was on my end. I gave the phone to Tsukasa and ran over to the window. And saw exactly what I didn't ant to see. There was a person trying to climb the side of the house, and he looks like he has a nasty case of leprosy. Oh. Fantastic. Terrible Move plot 3: Lepers attack!

Wait.

Why the hell would someone with leprosy be trying to climb the side of our house?

Shit.

Moving on, I grabbed the phone back from Tsukasa while giving her an encouraging look. Five thousand yen says I failed at that. Miserably. I opened the window again and tried to push him off, but he held on like a drunken Santa Claus. He moved a hand onto the window sill, and I took a chance and slammed the window shut on his hand. It didn't make a loud cracking sound. It went SQUISH. The guy didn't scream either. He made a growling sound that made my blood run cold, and I realized what he was. It should've been obvious, with all these other signs. It was a Specimen. A Horzine Specimen. I watched as he fell off the side of the house and splatter from the 3 meter fall. Chunks of rotten flesh landed in our garden.

Aaaaaand we are well are truly screwed now. Oh joy.

I ran back over to Tsukasa, and after a brief moment of hugging, I put the phone back up to my ear.

"Hiiragi-san? Miyuki-san is going to be a bit I'm afraid. There is someone at the front door."

"DON'T OPEN THAT DOOR!" I screamed into the phone. Minami surprisingly stayed calm. "Miss Hiiragi, you mean you haven't watched the news? The Horzine virus has escaped in Saitama, but in smaller quantities than in the outbreak in Britain. The military is already moving to contain it, and are manufacturing an antidote to counteracts its effects." She said it quickly yet concisely enough that I understood every word. Good skill. As she said this I heard Miyuki speaking in the background, in increasingly loud tones. "Miyuki-san is arguing with a police officer, refusing to be evacuated. She says she has several friends that are meeting up here before we evacuate. Would you be one of them Hiirag-san?" I sighed in relief. "Yes, myself and Tsukasa would be glad to meet up with you, but here's the thing: the antidote doesn't cure those afflicted with "dead". The military will only be able to do so much. Why are they letting it happen?"

Silence and an uneasy sigh. I thought so. They are going to let it go, most likely for political purposes. Disgusting, but I guess in the big scheme of things, a couple million dead isn't too bad. They'll work harder on trying to quarantine Saitama, taking any survivors that make it out, but certainly not risking their own skin on an Infection zone.

I told Tsukasa the plan, while confirmed something with Minami.

"If we're going to survive this, we're not going to do it with 5 people and no means to defend ourselves. The Horzine Virus' KDR is 7 million to 30. How are we going to fight that?"

"Bring whatever weapons you can scavenge while on your way here. A baseball bat or maybe an emergency fire axe would be optimal. They're quite squishy I've been told. Oh, and Miyuki-san is here. Here you are Miyuki." The last words accompanied by static as Miyuki picked up the phone.

"Kagami, how are you holding up? I'm still quite scared about all this, but I guess it's natural to be afraid of undead, flesh-eating humans trying to make a meal out of my innards."

She's holding up quite well, by god! Yep, she's probably mentally unstable from the sheer craziness of the situation. It MAY be my hatred of the world in general that I'm not in shambles about this whole thing.

**-MT: 10:45A.M.**

After finishing my conversation with Kagami, who was trying to calm me, and tell me to stay put and don't leave the house (obviously!) I hung up with some musings of my own. It sounded like she had already encountered these specimens. They were reanimated corpses, as was generally believed, but horribly mutated people and animals who have been exposed to the Horzine virus and have no immunity to it. The virus was actually a variation of the flu, so if you'd had the flu, you would not be affected by the Horzine virus, at least, not in its airborne form. If you were bitten or swallowed blood from anyone who was affected, you were gone the moment your brain was severed from the spinal cord.

I had researched this previously, because, as they say, knowledge is power. And because I had the flu several years ago, I will be fine, barring death by decapitation. That, I'm more worried about.

Myself and Minami went around to all the entrances, locking doors, closing and locking windows, even upstairs ones, and tried to find things to defend ourselves with. We found a nail gun in the garage, with a box of 60 nails, and a metal baseball bat. I took the bat, as the nail gun was heavy, and Minami hefted it up like it was nothing.

While we were still examining our finds, a scratching sound was heard at the front door. It was a grating sound, and small pieces of wood splintered on our side and fell to the floor.

Whatever was on the other side of that door was not friendly. Minami ran to the window next to the front door, and quickly jumped back. She looked at me with fear in her eyes.

Well, that's not good. I do belive a specimen is out there.

I creeped up to the door on the other side and looked out. The specimen still looked human, which was a start. That is, if people walked around without any skin on and having talons that rival an albatross replacing their hands. Its skull was exposed though, and everyone knows that if you destroy the brain, the specimen will die.

I took the bat in one hand and made a move to unlock the door, and Minami moved back to be in line with the door, about 3 meters away, holding the nail gun at eye level.

I unlocked the door, and the specimen, which I recall being called a Clot, trundled into the room. He saw Minami first, who fired the nail gun. Or rather, tried to. She hadn't loaded any nails into it, and it just made a large clicking sound. She realized this a moment too soon, and instead threw the nail gun at the Clot, which stumbled, and I took the initiative and made a heavy overhead strike on its head.

The effect was spectacular. Its head exploded into gobs of rotten flesh, its body leaning over sideways to the floor with a muffled thump. Miraculously, neither myself or Minami were touched by it. The walls on the other hand were stained.

Minami, still very visibly shaken, grabbed the box of nails and the nail gun and loaded it with a full clip of 15 nails.

Our carelessness had almost gotten us killed. That was a sobering thought.

We took a peek outside the front door, which was still partially intact, and saw another such creature stumbling around the front walk. Minami took a stance and fired the nail gun with a WHOOMPH sound, and the nail neatly embedded itself into the Clot's cranium. It fell over. And didn't get back up.

As we moved a dresser from the dining room into position in front of the door after tossing the body, sans head, out onto the walkway, I thought about my friends. I wondered where they were, and if they were even still among the living. We werealmost beaten by a shriveled skinless monster becuase we were careless. I hope they are faring better, though they should, as I live closest to the city, so there SHOULD, in theory, be less opposition for them to get from there to here. I just hope they're all right...

"Miyuki, I'm going to call some of my friends, to see if they're alright and if they could make it here. Is that okay with you?" Minami had her cell phone in hand, speed dial open.

Miyuki just nodded. The more people who could form a group to fight back and possibly escape this epidemic, the better...

**-KI 7:30 A.M.**

NanaKO!199: Oy, Konata, it's almost 8 A.M., I think we should get some sleep. Nice loot tonight though. ^.^  
>Konakona: Awwww teach, do I have to? And I totes agree. :P That Buster Sword will be a big DPS boost to my Pally<br>NanaKO!199: Yeah, have fun with that. I'm going to bed. I'll be up around midnight. . And I'll probably skip sleep on Sunday to be up in time for school.  
>Konakona: Got it teach, later then (^.^)<br>NanaKO!199 has signed off

The white text against the black screen begin to blur as sleep caught hold of her. Staying up 3 nights in a row for raids was exhausting, but it was worth it for the exclusive loot offered. She crawled over to her bed and turned conked out almost instantly, though her attempts at sleep would be all for naught. She didn't even realize the sounds of screaming and moans outside her window.

She was awoken by her father roughly shaking her awake only minutes later. At least, she thought it was, but in reality over 3 hours had passed, and it was almost 11 A.M. She tried to roll over and go back to sleep, but Sojiro Izumi was too much for her. She opened her eyes to look at him groggily, and seeing the look of terror and fear on his face, decided it was in her best intentions to get the hell up.

"What's the matter dad?" She said this after jumping out of bed and throwing some clothes on after her father had left the room. She walked into the living room to see the news on repeat, with a large Biohazard symbol rotating on the screen repeatedly. She paused to listen to the news broadcast.

"...virus has already infected a large majority of the population, the military is sealing off a massive region from Katon in the east down to Nagoya in the west, and Nagano in the north. It is expected for the majority of the population to be killed by this virus, which is a mutated strain of the same Horzine virus that destroyed Britain and caused the entire island nation to be leveled with nuclear weaponry. Officials are urging for everyone to leave the area immediately, and to report to government owned facilities to be vaccinated and shipped out of the country. The UN has declared Japan to be under a quarantine, and all incoming and outgoing planes and boats are being kept in port and kept under military protection. We will be back soon with live updates on this dire situation." 

Her dad just simply looked at her with a dead look in their eyes. He pointed to the box that was sitting on the table in the living room. She picked it up with bile rising in her throat.

It was_ Killing Floor: The Real Deal_, a game produced that detailed what the survivors of the British incident had to do to escape. They did not have it easy, and only 30 people out of the entire country made it out alive. Konata dropped the box and rushed over to her father and hugged him tightly. The situation had changed so dramatically, and so suddenly, she didn't know what they were going to do. He hugged back tightly, afraid for himself, and his daughter. It was the only family he had left, and he wasn't going to lose her too. Well, her and Yui and Yutaka...speaking of which, he thought desperately, where was the salmon-haired girl?

"Konata, where's Yutaka...?"

Konata froze. Her thoughts raced, but then she realized that Yui had picked her up last night to go to see some concert, and was staying the night at Yui's place.

"Dad, she's at Yui's...which is out of the city..."

"Good, she should be safe there...shouldn't you call your friends? We need to get out of here...quickly."

Konata nodded, then broke the embrace and ran to grab her cell phone off her desk. She dialed Kagami's number, while gazing out the window to see the scope of the problem. She looked at the bodies in the street, both moving and unmoving. This was NOT going to be easy.

Kagami's phone rang a couple minutes after she was done talking to Miyuki and had finalized plans to meet up at Miyuki's residence, as it was the most accessible place, and, being on a relatively large property, easy to see what was going on outside. She realized the number was Konata's, and picked it up immediately.

"Kagami! Are you alright? Have you looked outside? What are we going to do? Where's Tsukasa?" Her questions came out in a mess, but Kagami was used to it.

"Yes, I'm alright, I know that we are in the middle of a zombie apocalypse with a survival rate of almost zero, I'm going to round up everyone else we know and we are going to go to Miyuki's, and I'm currently searching through my kitchen cabinets for food, while Tsukasa is upstairs looking for things we can use to fight these things."

Kagami spoke with a hard tone to her voice, almost as if she had refused her fate that was laid out and was going to fight back against it. Which was, of course, exactly what was occuring.

Konata walked back to her dad, who was searching their cabinets as well. He had the right idea, though they never kept much around besides instant ramen and microwave-able food. That was coming back to bite them now. She went up to Sojiro before she replied.

"...Miyuki's house? We're not that far from here. Do we have to get there on our own? Listen Kagami, some of those things are right outside our door. How are we supposed to get past that?"

"Clots. Bash their heads in."

"Wait, what? Clots?" Konata was confused for a second.

"Yes, the ones that still look human, walk upright, and have huge talons for hands or something similar are called Clots. They have very mushy heads, and a good whack to the head will kill them."

"Yikes Kagami, you sound ready to fight these things."

"Listen Konata, I am. I'm not going to die here. If we prepare ourselves properly, and get supplies, we can ride this one out. We might have to leave the country to do it, but if there's a will, there's a way."

Konata thought about it. Kagami was right. She leaned over to her dad and asked him what they had to break through the stumbling flesh outside the door, to make the mad dash 4 streets over to Miyuki's house. He shrugged, before getting a creepy grin on his face.

"Kagami, I think we'll be leaving soon. We don't have much note-worthy here we could bring for supplies, so we're going to look for weapons and head out for Miyuki's place. If we never get there, don't come looking for us, okay? If we make it intact, we'll be waiting for you. See you in a little bit...hopefully."

Click.

There was no reason for Kagami or any of the others to throw their lives away in order to save her or her father. This was turning into one huge, twisted game of evolution. Survival of the fittest, as they say.

She heard her father rummagin for something in his closet of forbidden things, before walking out into the main room holding a handle with a sheathe on it. It was close to a meter long, and she wondered where he had gotten a sword...or at least until he pulled the sheathe off of it.

It wasn't a sword. It was an ENORMOUS butcher's knife. He held it deftly, the same maniacal grin plastered to his face.

"Konata, did I ever tell you what I did for work before I became a freelance writer? Well, I was butcher. And I had this for big jobs, like bulls. It's niiiiice and sharrrrrp. I almost forgot they let me keep it."

Well, that's one of us.

"Don't get any ideas Dad. Do you have anything smaller for someone like me?"

He only shook his head, deadly serious again.

Konata had other ideas however, and scoured the knife drawer for the biggest, most serrated knife we had. I decided on a meat cleaver about 20cm long, recently sharpened.

I regouped with my dad, who was trying to gather up all of his manga and anime.

"...Dad, you know we're not going to take any of this stuff with us right? It'll weigh us down."

He looked up, surprised Konata wasn't doing the same thing as him. She had already determined that the only thing she would take relating to her hobby was a Haruhi figurine.

"But, it'll just sit here...what if someone steals it?"

"Let them Dad, this is a matter of life and death, not a majestic little walk to the suburbs and back. And attempting to lug around several hundred kilos of stuff isn't going to help the situation."

He finally dropped the duffel bag, books and cases spilling out. He grabbed a backpack and put the only food they had found (green beans) into it, along with some cleaning supplies, some soap, and some clothing for both of them, and zipped it up. He handed it to Konata, who put it on, and they picked up their respective "blades", starting for the door. They sboth stopped at the door, and looked at each other.

Sojiro spoke first.

"So, this is it? Being thrown to the wolves?"

Konata nodded, a steely look forming in her eyes.

"Yep. Today is the first day of the rest of our lives. Let's not make it the last one too."

And little did she know how true her statement was.

**A/N: **To anyone who considered the 1st 2 chapters of this to be any good, I was hopped up on pain meds while writing those. Teeth surgery or some shit. ANYWAYS, thanks to a CERTAIN SOMEONE who may or may not have a last name with an anagram of DAUD, I am continuing this. So yay him. This chapter was significantly longer than the previous ones, and is roughly the length I will be aiming for in each consecutive chapter. I'm kind of making up the plot as I go, but I have a couple epic things planned out. Seeing as Japan has very restrictive gun laws, they're going to have to MacGyver some crazy shit if they want to survive. COUGH Miyuki and Minami in particular COUGH**  
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Anyways, hope you enjoyed this, and make sure to review, it's like the sweet sweet drug that makes me write more! And everyone LOVES drugs!

"I need drugs! NOW!"

We love you too Scully.


	4. Well, that sucked

SotF

Chapter 3

Legging It

Konata and her father were carefully picking their way down the street, avoiding the Clots in the middle of the street. It appeared that they could not see them, using sound to distinguish their locations. And since the whole city was noisy with the sounds of screaming and fires raging throughout the buildings, the sound of two pairs of footsteps were not going to alert them. Sojiro was slightly behind, for he was still carrying the over-sized knife. Konata's knuckles were turning white with the force of the grip she had on the knife. It was her only way of surviving, and she was not going to let it go. She peered around at the sheer damage that had been wrought in the past couple of hours; buildings that were pristine and perfect less than 14 hours ago now had blood smeared across them, along with other assorted organs and bodily fluids. There were claw marks all over an abandoned car, its windshield shattered, blood still dripping from the edges.

As she was looking around to take stock of the damages, her father caught up, also examining the sheer magnitude of the disaster. Neither of them had yet to take so much as a single swing at any of these...what did Kagami call them?...Clots, she thought. They're Clots. Almost as if to spite them, a groaning sound was heard on the opposite side of the car they were standing next to, and one of said Clots emerged, looked at them, and snarled. It stretched out its bloodied hands that had little skin left on them, and started to climb over the car, taking the most direct route to them. Konata jumped back in fright, but her father simply raised up the large cleaver and stood defensively in front of his daughter. As it managed to stumble to a standing positioin on the car, he used all of his strength to commit to a single overhead strike. This did two things. One one hand, it plunged the blade deep into the Clot's skull, into its torso, and then finally through the bottom to come to a rest, lodged int the b-pillar of the car. On the other hand, it also snapped the blade clean off its handle, sending Sojiro stumbling, before finally falling over on the curb. Only a split second later he was covered in entrails as the halves of the Clot fell over on opposite sides, one onto the curb, the other back out in the street.

Konata had watched the entire scenario unfold, and felt a hole appear in her stomach. The only real chance they had at escaping was gone, for a blade was useless without a handle, and it appeared that the blade was not very sharp in the first place.

Sojiro simply sat there in the refuse for a minute, unable to comprehend what had just happened. His lucky knife had snapped in one swing, on a wretched, rotting, reanimated corpse, no less. It was finally dawning on him that it was highly likely that he wouldn't be able to defend his daughter, and that they would not make it the two or three city blocks to the relative safety of the Takara household. He took relatice comfort in the fact that Yutaka was most likely already out of the city, away from the horrors within. He finally stood up after a minute or two, cleaning himself off as best he could, trying not to breathe in the horrid stench of rotten flesh that was beginning to permeate his clothing.

Konata began to quicken her pace, still not letting go of the knife she held. It was now the only means of defense they had against these creatures, and it was not going to last them very long if her father's experience with his great cleaver was any indication. Their little 'incedent' had, thankfully, not alerted the other Clots, who were still stumbling around in the middle of the street, trying to find their next victim. As they turned the corner onto the street that the Takara property was located on, they realized the scope of their problem. There were craters in the street, electrical wire down, some still fizzing. Several dozen clots roamed the street, unaffected by the electrical current that coursed through them occasionally. A small shop had toppled over into the road, spilling debris and rubble througout the street. Their destination would have been easy to spot on any other day, but now it was concealed in a layer of thick smoke and ash that hung above the city like the stench of the devil himself. There was no way to advance up the street, barring entering one of the buildings on the sides and traveling through the alleys, which were no doubt just as treacherous as the road itself, but seemed to be the only way to reach their destination. They looked at each other, then at the nearest intact building, a tea shop, then back to each other.

"It's the only way dad. And we can't stay out here for long, they might see us."

Her voice shook badly, but she retained the steely look in her eyes she had gained before leaving the comfort of their apartment.

"I know Konata, I just...I don't know. Fine, let's go, before I lose my nerve."

Her father's reply did nothing to calm her own nerves, but despite this, she again took point and led the way through the smashed front window of the now abandoned tea shop. There were stools knocked aside, but the decor of the shop looked relatively intact, so they made their way into the kitchen in the back.

Upon opening the door to the kitchen with an air of caution, Konata was rewarded to see something that wasn't quite human, but most certainly not a Clot, examining a body that was pinned to the wall. It was pinned to the wall by this thing's arm, which had been stripped of all flesh and tendon, and sharpened to a fine point, which was now holding the body in the air like a meat skewer. She began to close the door quietly, hoping not to alert it, when she was thrown into the room by her dad, who had charged into her, unaware of the threat inside.

**SECONDS EARLIER**

Sojiro was inspecting the small shop, looking for anything that could be considered a weapon, while his dimunitive daughter checked out the back room. He was also keeping an eye on the street outside, where the sounds of something grinding could be heard. He assumed it was nothing, until the source of the sound became apparent across the street. It looked like a circus performer from Hell. This thing had to be at least 2 meters tall, with a large, bald head, revealing a massive mouth with brick sized teeth. It got worse, as it was moving in an almost straight line towards the shop they were currently hiding in, its arm carrying a large, running, chainsaw. It was also wearing an apron that was crimson with blood, none of it its own. It was breathing heavily, and grunted once it saw him, and ran forward with surprising speed. In a rush, he ran through the shop and pushed Konata through the door tht she was in fron of. They both tumbled into the empty kitchen, except it wasn't so empty.

After her father threw them both into the kitchen the Gorefast was alerted to their presence, turning around and be knocked off balance by the corpse falling onto it. It lets out a sharp growl and cleaved through the corpse, causing the floor to be coated in a fine sheen of blood and other entrails. Konata got up from the ground and ran for the monster and raised her knife and drove it directly through the thing's head. At least, she meant to, but instead cut its head off due to the abscence of muscle holding the head to the body. The specimen collapsed and did not move, and before Konata could say a word, she heard the most gruesome scream in her relatively short life.

Her father was pinned by a massive creature that had a chainsaw grafted to its hands, and was wearing tattered medical scrubs. It was holding him aloft by a thickly muscled hand, squeezing the very life out of him. Thelarge zombie threw him behind him, where he impacted against the wall with a sickening crunch. Konata vaulted over the island in the middle of the kitchen to reach her father, but was pushed aside by the chainsaw zombie, who threw her through a door at the opposite end of the kitchen, and out into an alley. It only had one target now.

It brought down the chainsaw on her father, and then spun it up. As the wreckage cleared of the reamins of the wooden door, the silence in the air was replaced with a cacophony of screams, and the dust with rended flesh and blood. She began screaming as she watched her father by split apart before her eyes, wanting to run and join him, but having her self-preservation instincts holding her back. As the zombie moved the chainsaw further up his body, it lodged in his skull. It spit out on of his eyeballs, and unfortunately, it traveled directly into Konata's mouse. She gagged, and felt something wet and slimy in her mouth. She couldn't spit it out because something was telling her to swallow it. And swallow it, she did. She knew that the flesh was going to be the last thing she was able to get from her father, so she took her chances with the gory piece of the man once known as Sojiro Izumi.

By this point the chainsaw zombie was trying to move towards her, but since there was so much debris from the number it had done on the kitchen, it was unable to reach her, and her father's corpse had become entangled to the monster's saw, and was unable to spin it up. It was trapped in the room, roaring its displeasure to the human who was in a pile of rubble in the alley. Konata unsteadily rose from said pile of rubble, brushed herself off, and climbed into the alley. She climbed up onto a fire escape, and sat there. Tears flowed freely. Her father was dead and gone. There was no bringing him back, and it was all her fault, because she told him to follow her in here! After a long period of wallowing in her sadness, she decided she wouldn't cry over her loss until she was with her friends. She climbed down the fire escape with a hardened resolve, if only temporary. She walked unsteadily down the alley with her knife in hand, taking a cursory glance at the street in front of her, then gazing around the corner.

Less than 200 meters away lay the Takara household, and at this distance it was discernable that the house had been barricaded. There were two or three zombies pushing against the gate, but they were not getting through the wrought iron gate.

And in between herself and the gate, about 25 Clots and 3 Gorefasts, and one bloated zombie that was stumbling around and holding a rusted cleaver.

She weighed her chances. She could easily take down a couple Clots withthe knife, but she couldn't tango with a Gorefast. However, she was extremely agile, and could most likely run faster than any zombie around. It was only 200 meters to the house, maximum. She looked around for what she was looking for, and spotted it quickly. She ran over to a dumpster in the alley and climbed into it, and swung the lid on top of it so she could call Miyuki and not be compromised by some of these flesh eating son of a bitches.

She withdrew her cell phone in the dank dark of the dumpster and dialed a number. Miyuki's number.

_MT

After they finished barricading the doors and windows and took stock on anything that could be used as weapons, Miyuki and Minami were left with nothing to do but listen for the noise of potential intruders, and word on their friends. Miyuki was leaning against the door frame in the foyer when her cell phone rang. She quickly opened it and answered it on speaker phone, as Minami was in the room.

"This is Miyuki, may I ask who's calling, and your state of living?"

"Miyuki! It's Konata! I'm in a dumpster about 200 meters away from your front gate, but there are some zombies inbetween me and there. Could you help me out? Also, have you talked to Kagami and Tsukasa yet?"

Miyuki was relieved to hear from Konata, as she had not heard from her since this started. Until now, anyways. Then something occured to Miyuki: Konata was alone, it seemed. Where was her father, who was always so clingy?

"Um, Konata-san...we'd be happy to assist you in getting to my house, but...isn't your father with you?"

Dead. Silence. It lasted for several seconds, while Konata sighed several times and shifted around in the small space.

"See, the truth is...my dad is dead. He was killed less than an hour ago by a large zombie. It pierced him with a chainsaw and splattered his guts everywhere. I accidentally swallowed something of his, I think it was an eyeball."

Miyuki was repulsed and shocked and saddened all at once to hear this. She knew how close Konata was to her father, and now that he was gone, she was totally and wholly alone.

"I'm getting out of this dumpster. Miyuki, I'm going to make a run for your house, can you defend me with anything while I do so? Or do I wait for you to beat up a few in the gate area?"

Minami walked in front of Miyuki with the nail gun, hefting it up and aiming it out of the window, down the street to where Konata supposedly was.

"Well Konata, my neighbor Minami is getting into position in my foyer with a nail gun we found, and should be able to provide some help. I'm going to go outside and beat the Clots away from the gate so we can open and close it quickly when you get in."

Konata nodded her head.

"I'll take those chances, I think the stink is starting to permeate into my clothes. I'm going to open the hatch and bolt on your mark, alright Miyuki-chan?" The sound of paper being crinkled constantly under Konata's feet, so she only barely heard Miyuki say "Whenever you're ready then."

Gathering herself underneath the lid of the dumpster, Konata composed herself before quietly, and ever so slowly, unlatching the lid. Once it was free, it sagged down to res on the top of her head, while Konata sucked in the stale air, waiting, listening for sounds. Nothing was heard except for Miyuki's breathing from the cell phone. She leaned down to the phone.

"Alright Miyuki, I'm heading out in a second. I'm going to hang up the phone so I can secure it, it'll be useful later. So...see you in a minute, or never, right?."

She laughed nervously, closing the phone and putting it into her bag. Getting comfortable, she rested her hands up on the lid, tensing up.

In a single fluid movement, she pushed up with both her legs and arms, pushing the lid open, revealing the alley, and surprising a Clot that had been loitering at the end of the alley. Hopping out of the alley, she swung her bag around, walloping the Clot in the head, dropping it to the ground in a heap. Running by it into the street, Konata had now alerted several Clots and a few other specimens to her presence. They began to stumble towards her as she began running full sprint towards the gates, spotting mint green and pink hair at a large ornate metal gate, beating several Clots away from it.

With about half the distance left, she heard a sizzling type of sound, then felt something hot pass by her face by mere inches, watching a flaming rod shoot by, lodging itself into the side of a van, melting the siding to the vehicle. Looking back, a large hulking thing had a large emitter of some type attached to its arm, or rather replacing it. The entirety of its face was burned and scarred, and a bright yellow eyeball hung loosely from its eye socket, the other eye affixed directly at her. Konata veered to the side to attract its fire, causing the fiery projectile to smash into a stone column on the side of the Takara family's gate, rebounding off it and into a puddle on the sidewalk, laying among the detritus, still red-hot.

Making it to the crowd of Clots at the gate, Konata shouted at them, drawing their focus away from the girls inside the gate,allowing them to place more accurate hits on the Clots, downing them faster. Not fast enough however, as another shot was heard, but Konata ducked just in time, causing the flames to jump into the crowd of Clots, the rapidly rotting flesh creating a melting mass of dying Clots. The way into the gates was now blocked, Konata threw her bag over the gates, watching Miyuki catch it on the other side in surprise. Konata began to quickly scale the gate, pulling her small frame up quickly. Near the top, she felt a hook dig into her ankle.

Screaming in pain and surprise, she looked down, seeing a half-melted Clot's arm pulling at me, a thin trail of blood dripping from her leg, staining her pants red. Dropping one hand, she kicked the Clot in the head, causing it to release its grip. Pulling herself up again, she swung over to the opposite side of the gate, climbing down deftly and entering a swift embrace from Miyuki, while Minami stood beside her feeling rather awkward.

They locked the gate that was now almost fused shut due to the scorched mass of flesh, before retreating into the house.

Konata now began to really grasp what had happened, was brought into the parlor by Miyuki, and had a nice long cry.

By the time they ate a hasty lunch of pre-made noodles at 2 P.M., Konata had no more tears to spill, and had come to grip with her father's death, on the surface level, anyways. 

They began the unsteady wait for information concerning their friends, as Kagami and Tsukasa were supposed to make their ways to the Takara house while Konata was on her way. This was complicated by the face that they were farther away, and would be going into the city, as opposed to out of the city, against the flow of what most people would attempt to do.

One could only pray for their safety...though that would do little to help.

**A/N: Ayooooo! After several months of not giving a shit, I had a burst of inspiration to finish this chapter and publish it. So to anyone who reads it, thankies for waiting! If not, eh, don't blame you, it sucks. Depending on how feedback is, I'll write more, but honestly, what was I thinking writing this? Anywaaaaaays, a review would be wonderful, and keep it classy.**

**~Nyoron~ **


	5. Not exactly a people person

Stars on the Floor

Chapter 4: Not exactly a people person

A/N: Hello all, it's been a while. I had a burst of inspiration (and free time) lately, so I'm putting out a new chapter of this. I'm focusing on Just When and Vapor right now, but this is a fun little side project, like Growlithe and Loop, so expect updates every few weeks. Now, on with the plot!

_KH_

It was eerie, how quiet it was. Me and Tsukasa were cautiously making our way towards Miyuki's house, not bothering to take the train, so progress was slow, and the lack of noise was deafening. The occasional guttural moan from places unknown or crackle from a trashcan lit aflame, but that was the extent of it.

We both had backpacks full of food and a few personal effects. I had dug out a knife that my father used to use for cutting large pieces of meat, while my sister had refused a weapon, claiming the rabbit wouldn't like it. So my sister is delusional. Perfect.

We tried contacting Matsuri and Inori, but they had been out of town with friends, and our parents had left for work and running errands, respectively. I didn't count on mum and dad surviving, because they had been right in the middle of the outbreak, and it looked like there were few survivors.

Taking a left at an intersection, a person ran by us screaming gibberish, bleeding out of a large bite on their arm.

The road ahead was completely devoid of zeds, but I stopped anyways.

We looked around but couldn't see anything, but I had the distinct feeling that we were being watched.

Then I heard ragged breathing, and light footsteps.

Turning towards the source of the noise, I saw nothing but a hear wave near another flaming trashcan.

Taking no chances, I ran at it and stabbed at the air.

The air likewise screamed in pain and a hunched lady became visible, the knife I held sticking into her throat. It gurgled thick black liquid before dropping to the ground, dead. The smell of the liquid was quite rank, and I coughed a little bit, but managed not to puke.

Tsukasa had remained oddly calm, and I gave her a look, but she just shrugged, and started walking again. I caught up to her and walked slightly ahead of her, on the lookout for any more invisible zombies.

We made it almost 3 blocks before another one came right at us, but a heat wave in the middle of the street is easy to spot.

I continued on like I didn't see it, but when it was near enough, turned and stabbed it right in the face. Another dead hunch-back invisible mutant zombie person.

That wasn't so hard, I'm just breathing hard for an entirely different reason.

Mainly the fact that it's almost sundown, Miyuki's house is in sight, and the massive number of zeds in-between us and the house.

I eyed the apartment buildings on either side of the Takara property, forming a plan in my head. I started for the nearest building, a diner, gesturing for Tsukasa to follow.

We went in cautiously, but the place had been unlocked, and totally empty. We went up to the second floor, then to the roof, through a hatch in the ceiling. The alleyway between the diner and the apartment was only about 2 meters wide, and there was an open window on the same level as us. The window sill had numerous chunks missing out of it, and black zombie blood splattered on it, but it was better than nothing.

I looked over the edge and down the street, eyeing how they congregated in the middle of the street and in front of the iron fence at Miyuki's. Some banged on the fence, but most just wandered around without any real purpose.

I looked back to Tsukasa, who was humming nursery rhymes. I see she's coping well.

I went back down to the upper floor to grab a few things. I took a golf club from the bedroom, some batteries from the kitchen, a sheet of plywood that was against the wall, and a bag of sugar. Climbing back up to the roof, Tsukasa was just sitting on the ground, looking at me.

"Are we gonna make it sis?"

Her voice was distant, and she didn't look to be aware of her surroundings.

"Yeah Tsukasa, we'll be fine once we get to Miyuki's house. We'll get out of this together..."

I honestly couldn't voice how much I doubt this, but Tsukasa is very fragile right now.

"Alright sis, do you need my help with that stuff?"

Getting up, she helped me maneuver the plywood into the window of the apartment. I then took the bag of sugar and threw it through the window, listening to the bag rip and it's contents spill, and listen for any footsteps across the sugar grains, which would be louder, and their pattern would indicate a human or...other presence.

We didn't hear anything, so I hand Tsukasa the knife and crawled across the board to the apartment with the golf club in hand.

The interior was well furnished, but a few things made me freeze the instant I made it beyond the curtains that had been obscuring my vision.

The first being the dead body of a an eight-legged zed.

The second being a person sleeping in an armchair at the end of the room with a bloodied tire iron in his hands, and a gas-mask obscuring covering his head.

I almost considered trying to attack the man, but he chose that exact moment to crack to wake up, looking around.

"Aw bloody hell, can't a bloke get some sleep around here? And look, the lass has brought her friend too!"

Tsukasa just climbed in the window apparently.

Though, the man hasn't tried to kill us yet, so there's that.

"Cat got your tongue lass? Is it 'cause I'm foreign? Ah, bullocks, that don't matter. The name's Scully. You?"

This guy is...British? Wait, Britain got nuked. No way...it's not possible...Scully...

"I'm Tsukasa and this is my twin sister Kagami. She's thinking right now, you can tell by the way her head is tilted."

"Twins? Ah, I see it now. Tis a pretty hair color, lilac. I'm not one to judge."

I finally figured it out.

"Um Scully, are you THE Scully? One of the few to escape the initial Horzine outbreak alive?"

He leaned forward, and I could almost see his brow furrowing.

"You heard of me? Well, aren't you just the brightest. Yeah, I'm the real deal. And here I thought that moving to Japan would get me away from all the crazy zed shenanigans. I thought wrong, hm?

Anyways, enough about my unfortunate past. Where were you two headed before you interrupted my little nap? I've got no where to go, and it was pure luck that I made it up here by myself."

I quickly connected the dots on what he was saying, and picked my words carefully.

"Well, we're heading for that house next door that has the iron gates. Our friend lives there, and we planned to all meet up there before trying to get out as a group. Strength in numbers, right? If you want to join us, that would be great, because we honestly don't have any real inkling on what to do..."

Scully got up and put his tire iron on his shoulder.

"Next door? Well let's get moving lassies! I'll lead, just follow. Watch out for those nastie Stalkers for me, and we'll be fine."

We just shrugged, then followed him down the stairs, which were slick with black and red bodily fluids. The second floor was even worse, the bodies of it's inhabitants strewn about this time with claw and bite marks, as well as a shattered skull or some other blunt trauma.

The first floor, the lobby, was cleaner, with only one corpse, a person who looked to have list all their skin and had their arm bone sharpened to a point. That one was missing it's head entirely. Just peachy.

Scully turned to us as we neared the revolving door that separated us from the outside world.

"Alright, only Clots and Gorefasts out there, and maybe a few Stalkers. I've handled double these numbers in my sleep. Just stay close, and ahhhh Kagami was it, bash any ya can with that 9 iron. Hm, Tsuka? No, Tsukasa, yeah, I'd advise just sticking close to us, don't stray too far, lest a Clot grabs you; then it's all over."

With that, we walked through the revolving door into the twilight. It had to be nearing 6 o'clock.

Scully walked up behind a Clot and neatly smashed it's head in.

"Alright you bloody wankers, who wants a piece of yer 'ol pal Scully? Don't think I've gone soft on ya with a few years of down time!"

His shouting drew the attention of all of the zeds in the street. He looked back at us, nodded once, then took off for the nearest Clot. Bashing its head as he ran by, he leapt into the air, turning slightly, and decapitated the Gorefast behind it.

We moved up closer to him as he clobbered his way through the crowd, not being hit once. Taking a minute to run back to us as I performed an overhead strike on a Stalker, he led us further down the road, now less than 10 meters from the gate.

"Alright you bloody twits, come get some!"

He shouted as he ran by the iron gate of Miyuki's house, and in the fast fading light, I swore I saw the door to the house open.

I swung at a Stalker that crossed my vision just as Scully swung at a Gorefast who was chafing at him, and our weapons collided, making a loud CLANG.

Well, that woke up the neighborhood.

A fat zed walked out of an alleyway not 4 meters to our right, and in a panic, Tsukasa threw her knife at it. It went straight into its stomach, causing it to explode all over the alleyway.

"Oy lass, don't be playin with those Bloaters, buggers are mighty acidic."

We couldn't even see Scully, but we could see the ever decreasing amounts of zeds around him, and his weapon going up and coming back down with frightening regularity. We started towards the crowd, knocking down Clots and removing their heads.

Within a minute, an odd sound joined the grunts of exertion from both ourselves and Scully. An odd whumping sound every so often. Clots we were attacking randomly collapsed without a head too.

It was dark by now, and looking to the gate that was illuminated by the few remaining streetlamps, I saw a mop of mint-green hair at the gate, holding a nail gun with both hands.

"That's the last of these bastards, now let's get to safety, eh lassies?

Oh, is that your friend?"

We all walked up to the gate. I didn't know who it was that was there, but they wordlessly opened the gate, allowing us in, before closing and locking the gate behind us.

She looked all of us over before walking towards the house, beckoning for us to follow.

Tsukasa whispered to me as we all walked up the main drive "Sis, isn't that Yuki-chan's neighbor?"

Ah yes, that's who it was. The one with the huge dog. Well, WAS the one with the dog.

Dammit, this is going to end badly.

Fishing a key from her pocket, she unlocked the door and led us inside. I noted that the windows has been barricaded from the inside.

She closed the door behind us, locking it, and securing two deadbolts. Yikes.

With that, she led us through the blackness towards a dim light at the end of the house.

Inside was a lamp, with Miyuki and Konata sitting at it, doing their own thing.

Konata was actually leaning against a chair and lightly dozing, her copious amounts if blue hair making a decent pillow, while Miyuki was reading a book in the dim light.

Upon looking up, she got up and embraced me and Tsukasa.

"Kagami-san! Tsukasa-San! There you are! We were getting awfully worried about you. When I heard Minami get up and leave the house this late, I didn't realize she'd heard your approach."

Then she spotted Scully, still in his gas-mask, standing behind us, leaning against the wall, and jumped back.

"Eep! Uhm, and who is this? I mean, was he with you, or is he an intruder?"

I turned around as Scully set the tire iron on a chair and offered his gloved hand for Miyuki to shake, which she did so nervously.

"The name's Scully, miss. Apologize for the scare, but I tagged along with Kagami and Tsukasa after they found me in the apartment next store. This isn't my first go round with these buggers, and I helped these two get here. Through a crowd of zeds, no less."

Miyuki looked thoughtful for a minute.

"You were present for the original Horzine outbreak? That's truly a tragedy, but I'd be happy to have your expertise as we try to outlast this calamitous event..."

I sat down in the chair that Konata was leaning on and put the golf club next to Scully's tire iron. Tsukasa bent down and prodded Konata until she woke up, who blinked, yelled "Tsukasa!", and hugged her from her sitting position, causing Tsukasa to fall over onto her.

After Konata crawled out from under my sister, she finally saw me.

"Kagamiin!"

Forgetting all forms of civility, Konata jumped on me, knocking the wind out of me as she hugged me tightly.

"K-Konata, nice to see you too."

I could feel a blush forming on my face, but due to the low light, it thankfully went unnoticed.

Konata snuggled up next to me, and fell back asleep. From what I could see in the dark, she had tearstains on her face, so I let it slide.

Miyuki looked over to me morosely.

"Kona-chan...lost her father while attempting to make it here. She grieved for a few hours, then fell asleep. Just let her be..."

I nodded, leaning forward and removing my backpack. I pulled out a blanket and threw it over the both of us. Miyuki turned off the lamp, and bid all of us goodnight. Miyuki laid down in s recliner and sighed, while Scully and Tsukasa both took up positions in loveseats on opposite sides of the room. Minami laid down on the couch across the room, her face looking towards us, and gave me a small smile before closing her eyes.

I laid there thinking for a bit, wondering what was going to happen to all of us. Sure, through an amazing luck of the draw, we had the assistance of a Horzine outbreak veteran, if you could call him that, and we had supplies, but really, were a group of high school students and one guy who knows what he's doing going to have any chance of surviving?

As much as I hate to admit it, I doubt we're going to pull through this. At least, not all of us.

A/N: Well, that went better than expected. So yeah, please leave a review if you want, and hope you enjoyed the chapter!


	6. Welcome to the party

Stars on the Floor

Chapter 6: Welcome to the Party

**December 25****th****, 2012  
>06:25 A.M.<strong>

In the pre-morning darkness, my sleep was interrupted by the trilling of my cell phone. I scrambled to find it, falling out of the chair I had fallen asleep on, but managing to get the phone, which had fallen underneath said chair, and get it open. I didn't want my Haruhi ringtone to wake up everyone else.

I went out of the room and into the hallway to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Konata? Hey, this is Ayano. Misao and I are at my house, but these weird things are climbing the sides and I beheaded one with my katana, it was kind of rotten inside..."

I just leaned against the wall, preparing to wake up Kagami...

"Ayano, how far from Miyuki Takara do you live? This is basically a zombie apocalypse, which is really bad, and we've holed up at Yuki-chan's. How's the meth in a crack pipe doing anyways?"

Ayano paused for a bit, and yelling could be heard in the background. After a minute, the phone rumbled, like it was getting picked back up.

"Takara-san? I'm about 10 minutes away walking distance...but aren't there more of these things in the streets? Oh, and Misao is having a blast...I don't think she realizes the severity of the situation..."

Konata nodded, also noting that there was a man she had not noticed before bundled up in a bunch of blankets on the floor. She vaguely remembered seeing him last night when she had jumped on Kagami...he'd assisted Kagami and Tsukasa in getting here, right?

Cogs turned in Konata's head and she turned away from the sleeping figure.

"Ayano, how long do you two think you can hold out? I'm going to get a few of us together and head out for your place...Kagami knows where it is, right?"

"Well, I have my katana, so I should be pretty okay for quite a while. Misao grabbed a knife, but I don't think that will be too useful...We're sitting in the living room, watching the front and back doors. Oh, hang on."

Phone down again, but a distinct 'shing' could be heard, before Ayano was back.

"I just got another one...creepy little thing. It dropped out of the ceiling; I think you guys should come quickly if you want us in one piece. Oy, Misao! Hiiragi-chan and Izumi-san are bringing some friends to the party!"

Misao could be heard in the background cheering, before a much more rough 'clunk' sounded.

"Yeah, if you're gonna come get us, make sure you have something to fight en with. Any timeframe for us to pray by?"

Konata had been rousing Kagami while Ayano was detailing their plight.

"Um, half an hour maybe? Wait, it's dark out, how are you able to see these things?"

"The streetlights are still functional, as is the electricity in my house; I brought some lamps we had in the basement that my dad had from work and aimed them out into the yard. We're the house with all the lights going, hehe."

"And...what of your family? Sounded to me like you and cracky were alone."

"Yeah, I was lucky I guess, they're on a business trip overseas. It's just Japan that's gone to shit, right?"

Well, Ayano is optimistic.

"Yeah, unless the zombies learn to swim a couple hundred kilometers..."

"Misao, what the hell are you doi-oh SHIT! Konata, you guys better get here, now!"

A dull roar and a scratching could be heard, and then Ayano hung up.

"Kagami, get up! Now!"

Abandoning all civility, I pushed her out of the chair, moving on to Miyuki's neighbor, who was on her side. Before she made it across the room, however, Minami turned to her, eyes wide open, analyzing her. She got off the couch she had been on, stretched, and grabbed the nail gun that she had set next to the makeshift bed.

She simply said, "I heard your conversation."

Kagami had groggily awoken during that exchange, and true to form, the first thing that came out of her mouth was "What the hell Konata?".

I just moved to Miyuki while replying "Ayano and Misao are about to get royally screwed by a massive zed. We're gonna snatch em from Ayano's house first. Safety in numbers, yeah?"

Miyuki looked so peaceful when she was asleep, but awoke with a mere tap of the shoulder.

"mmgh...Yes Kona-chan? It's still dark out...is something wrong?"

I related the story back again while her neighbor woke up Tsukasa. Her eyes grew wide as I finished.

"Alright, let's go then...Kona-chan, did you wake up Scully-san?"

"The guy in the hallway?"

"Yes, he's a valuable asset to our survival; you should get him to cone with us."

It was not needed however, as Scully leaned in the door and gave us a mock salute.

"No need my dear lass, I 'erd the whole thing from our lovely ocean hair lassie here. When your arse is about to get eaten by a bloody zed, there ain't nothin like a couple good team mates to back ya up! Well, that and maybe a few pieces, but we'll deal with that later..."

Miyuki was up now, and grabbed a metal baseball bat to use as a weapon.

I looked around, at our motley crew...

"Tsukasa, why don't you stay here with Iwasaki-san to guard the house and to open the gates when we come back?"

Tsukasa nodded, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Okay, I don't think I'm that good at fighting anyways. Make sure to cone back safely everyone!"

With that, the rest of us crowded through the hallway and out the doors into the brisk morning air.

Something occurred to me as Minami opened the gates for us to proceed. Today was Christmas Eve. Kind of odd to think that elsewhere, people were celebrating, and not fighting for every waking minute of their very survival.

It doesn't change our situation by thinking happy thoughts, though. The truth of it is that my dad died just yesterday, and we're uncertain as to how exactly we're going to get out of here before Japan gets removed from the face of the planet.

Kagami took point in our little group, because she knew where to go. The sun was just beginning to shine its' rays on the streets of the now decrepit city, and the spooky silence was beginning to be broken by a few moans, groans, and other noises that certainly weren't human; not anymore, at least.

The noises were beginning to grow steadily louder, and by the time we reached the end of the road, it was a cacophony of guttural roars and scraping sounds.

Turning the corner onto Ayano's street, I immediately noticed two things. One was bright lights shining out from the interior of the house. The other was the sheer mass of zeds crowded around the house, tripping over the fence, and pouring into the building.

Scully wasted no time in getting ahead of us, sprinting full-bore into the crowd of undead monsters, while shouting to attract their attention.

"Oy, you lugs, miss me?" This was accentuated by a heavy-handed swing into a Gorefast, sending it sprawling, sans head, into a mass of clots, their limbs tangling up and becoming a useless mass of squirming flesh.

Miyuki took surprising action, running up to the nearest Clot and giving its head a good whack, felling it in one blow. She moved back towards us and a few were coming at her. One was outside of her field of vision, and I rushed at it with a knife and stabbed it in the back of the head as I ran by it. A quick glance told me it was down, but not out. It was still crawling, but now focused on myself, but Miyuki had noticed it and slammed the bat onto its head, ending it.

We fought our way steadily towards the house, hearing shouts from inside. We were intercepting the zeds that were trying to go inside, but there must have been a decent amount already inside.

There was a fat zed that was attempting to push through the doorway of the house, but Kagamiin and Scully prevented me from hitting it. Instead, Kagami grabbed my knife and threw it straight into its stomach. It exploded into a pile of acidic goop that ate away at the woodwork of the doorway for a few seconds before dissolving into nothingness.

Scully was first inside the house, with myself close behind, as I had been fighting Clots in the side yard. We could hear Misao and Ayano shouting on the second floor, and some kind of constant roar, but we stopped for a split second to marvel at the state of the bottom floor.

It looked like a bomb had hit it; furniture was overturned and covered in bite marks, walls were splashed in equal parts blood and the same acidic bile, the floor was knee-deep in bodies. Oh man, the bodies. Mountains of Clots, piles of Gorefasts, mounds of heads and limbs, and pools of blood all over the white carpet. The wall on the far end of the room had a massive hole in it, as though something big had run through it. Scully took in everything in a moment, before heading to the stairs.

"These girlies know how to put up a good fight, eh lassies? Oh bugger off, that's the footprint from a…."

The stairs were demolished. Half of the steps had holes in them, and only the very edges were intact. Upon getting to the top, we could see Ayano's red hair at the end of the hallway, bouncing around and weaving back and forth.

Then it stepped into view.

Bigger than a sumo wrestler, more muscular than American action movie stars, and the same color as the floor, or rather, of congealed blood, it was spinning around the open room at the end of the hallway, attempting to hit Misao and Ayano, who were running around in circles in opposite directions, confusing it. Every rotation, Ayano hit the massive zed in the back of the legs with her katana. Wow, that's a real katana. Crack head had a knife but it wasn't large enough to attempt the same antics. There's a Fleshpound right in front of us. Oh no oh no…

Ayano shouted out to us "Took you guys long enough! We fought off an army of these things!"

Kagami sweatdropped and yelled back "We noticed."

The FP started to notice its new targets, mainly us, but Scully ran out into the room and bonked it on the head with his tire iron, which now looked like a billyclub than a tire iron.

Unfortunately, this just made it angry. I mean, like really angry. The adrenaline pump on its chest went from yellow to red, and it let out a terrifying screech, before running after Ayano, almost catching up to her pace. We all spread out in the room when this happened. The spiked gauntlets on its hands had now begun to spin so fast you couldn't see it, and I wasn't about to find out what it looked like when I touched it.

"Take this!" Misao ran in front of the Fleshpound and threw the knife into its stomach, hitting the bulb on the adrenaline pump and shattering it, sending glass shards into the beast. It screamed in pain but only serving to enrage it further.

It was now following Misao with a singular hatred, but she bolted back towards the middle of the room, where we were in a long line. Ayano came up behind the Fleshpound and swung her katana sidelong, trying to cut its head off, but the neck muscles in it were too thick. It sliced through a couple tendons and came to a rest right before the spinal cord, but Ayano wrenched the sword free and backed off towards the opposite wall.

Kagami ran up to it with the…lamp? Okay, that's new. She ran up to it and smashed the lamp over its head, embedding more glass shards in it, this time causing several wounds that were bleeding profusely.

I looked around and tried to find anything else we could use to impale it, but all I saw was the large ceiling fan.

I formed an idea in an instant, and ran for a stack of shelves on the side of the room.

"What are you doing Konata! This is no time to be reading manga!"

Oh, it is a shelf of manga. Oh well.

"Not that Kagamiin, just get that thing in the middle of the room!"

I jumped at the shelf, scrambling up it to stand on top of it. I looked to the ceiling fan that was hanging above the brawl, collecting myself and making sure I didn't trip on my hair.

In one sheer leap, I latched onto the pole that was suspending it from the ceiling, climbing on top of it to stand on it. It held my weight, which wasn't much, while I looked down to see Miyuki, Scully, and Ayano hitting it between them to force it into the center.

I took out my knife and began cutting away at the thick wire which held it up. As I cut through the wire, the fan became more and more unbalanced, slowly keeling to one side. I leaned over and compensated for it, but it was still tilting at an obscene angle. Looking down, Kagami and Scully were starting to get cornered by the Fleshpound, but Miyuki hit its back and diverted attention away at the last second.

"Ready!" Kagamiin shouted up to me, and I cut the last strand of wire.

The fan dropped like a rock, myself included. The very center of the lightbulb landed smack dab on the skull of the Fleshpound, impaling its' brain with wonderful, wonderful glass. The Fleshpound stayed straight up for a few seconds, before falling backwards with a mighty crash. I jumped off as it fell, landing on a pile of laundry that was in the corner. Ooh, a Hachune Miku shirt!

The silence that came after was almost too good to be true.

Misao and Ayano hugged Kagami, I stared at Ayano's katana, and relief was had by all. A few clots had tried to come up the stairs in the meantime, but could not due to the Flespound-induced holes, and we dispatched those easily. Misao and Ayano collected their things that they would be taking and put them into backpacks. The rest of us scavenged around for useful things. Ayano busted down the locked door to her basement and we found some useful things in there. Fishing poles and fishing line, which we took, for making tripwires and traps (Scully told us about that one.) Ayano grabbed her sharpening wheel, for keeping her sword sharp. She remarked about another sword that she had that was among the clutter of the basement, and said that while it was a real sword, didn't have much use. I found what she meant after I had pulled on what looked like an instrument case. It was an odachi, and a large one at that, complete with a wooden sheathe.

Ayano just kind of looked at it and said "Yeah, that's what I mean. It has a 170cm blade. If anyone wants to take it, they can, but I'm going to stick with this." She hefted said katana and went up the stairs to raid the kitchen. Miyuki assisted me in getting the sword up the stairs, as it was quite large and awkward.

Upon getting into the living room, and therefore natural light, we set it on an overturned couch that was relatively free of the effects of the battle that resulted in its overturned state.

"Let's go make sure that there are no more zeds in the area, we'll be heading back to my house soon."

So Miyuki led us outside into the morning sun. We checked around the house and even went as far as the end of the road, but apparently every zed in a thousand meter radius had decided to come to the party/slaughterfest at Ayano's house. Coming back in the house, we were greeted by Scully carrying three handbags and two backpacks full to bursting with food, and Kagami with a similar payload. I took my new sword and carried it out the door, Ayano and Misao being the last ones out the door.

Ayano looked back at the house forlornly, before Misao came out with her bags and took Ayano by the shoulder to lead her away from her now thoroughly destroyed home. We must have made quite a sight to anyone else holed up in their home, walking down the street, carrying swords and bags of food, and in Scully's case, wearing gas masks.

We only saw 4 Clots on our way back, but Kagami did give me her bags once and stabbed an invisible zed in the face when it had been not even 5 meters away. That unsettled me a bit, but we resumed out much slower walk back to Miyuki's house.

The gate in front of her house was clear of zeds, surprisingly, but their were several fresh corpses at the gate as well, each one missing a head, or at the very least had a large hole in the cranium.

"The lass be the perfect material for a Sharpshooter!" Scully's comment made everyone laugh a little, but it was true. Minami had not missed a single headshot, apparently. When we neared the gate, Tsukasa came out of the house to unlock the gate.

"Hey everyone!...You guys look tired. Are you alright?"

Misao just faked keeling over. "Hiiragi, you have no idea what just happened. We had a midget rodeo!"

I elbowed Misao, not too keen on the midget jokes. She just laughed, before addressing Tsukasa again.

"No, really, we had a run-in with this massive zed…zombie….thing. It took all of us a while to take it down. Izumi here rode a ceiling fan right into its skull to take it down."

Tsukasa looked suitably alarmed as she closed the gate behind all us again, before we started up to Miyuki's house.

"So this is Takara-san's house…oh! Miyuki-san, thanks for having us, even if it's a bit of a antiquated statement now." Ayano tried to be all polite, but with mutant people and zombies walking around, we all came to the agreement that honorifics weren't really needed. Everyone was on equal footing now, and we'd all have to be to get out of the country alive.

Though a much-appreciated apology came from Misao while I was trying to figure out how to use my fancy new sword, which was a nice touch.

"Um, Konata, wow that's weird….um, anyways, sorry for calling you short and everything…..we need to be able to work together to get through this! Hells to the yeah for teamwork?"

I looked at her sideways, the weight of the sword causing it to dip towards the neatly manicured lawn.

"….are you sure you're alright Misao? I'm pretty sure you might be getting sick if you're apologizing to me. You don't know what you're doing!" She laughed, I laughed, and we sat in the backyard of the house for a while and just reminisced…..because Kami knows that things are going to get a whole lot tougher.

We may have gotten lucky, but there's only so long before the military steps in and tries to clean up….and hopefully not nuke the place, like they did with the UK. While that did fix the problem, it also killed thousands of civilians who were immune to the virus. It also caused global ecological problems that had basically destroyed the entire agricultural industry of almost all of Europe. Italy suffered a 4 year long drought, and was no longer fit to produce wine, for example.

Hopefully, they'll just send in the real badasses and kill all the zeds…..which still accounts for a good chunk of the population, surely, but that allows for the possibility of reconstruction. Straight nuclear bombing doesn't.

One can only hope. Right?

**A/N: One can only hope….wouldn't be much of a story if they just nuked the place and called it a day. More of the real caliber of badass will show up at a pre-determined point…..**

**Please leave a review, and thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it!**


	7. It's just like riding a bike!

Stars on the Floor

Chapter 6: It's just like riding a bike!

**A/N: This switches the POV around again, can't leave anyone out of the fun, now can I? I've stopped labeling the POV's as well, as I feel the need to be able to distinguish from each one in some way, mostly nicknames and ways of describing things.  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Accommodations were made for Ayano and Misao, and they ended up sleeping on the floor on blankets carried from Yuki-chan's bed. Everyone had cup noodles for dinner that night, sitting around talking and laughing...and trying not to remind ourselves that we're in the middle of a crisis situation.<p>

I didn't get much sleep that night. I kept on tossing and turning and disturbing Sis. I kept on having nightmares about standing in a clearing in the woods looking at our parents covered in blood, crying out for help. From the back of my mind, I knew it wasn't real, but that didn't stop it from being terrifying. As I kept on looking, I heard a high pitched whine, and a large shadow covered our parents.

The shadow vanished after a second, leaving our parents with more holes in them than actual flesh. Their faces were that of pure agony and fear.

I jerked awake.

Sunlight was peeking through the thick curtains, and the familiar smell of coffee was in the air.

I rolled over to see sis and Konata snuggled together on their chair, but Yuki-chan and the others were already up.

I got off the couch, wobbling on shaky legs. 'That dream must have really gotten to me...'

I walked into the hallway, sighing as I walked by the kitchen. I wanted to calm down first.

I walked into the bathroom and started the cold water on the sink. Holding my breath, I was about to stick my head underneath when I heard the now-familiar groan of a zed, extremely close. I flinched back out of instinct, also hearing scratching coming from the shower stall.

I ran out of the room, slamming the door shut behind me.

"EEEEK!"

That had woken me up better than any cold water splash, that's for sure.

Misao and Ayano came out of the kitchen with food in hand, looking alarmed.

"What's the matter Tsukasa, stub your toe?" Misao laughed at her own joke, buy I didn't think it was very funny.

"No! There's one of those things in the bathroom, in the shower!"

That shut them up, and caused Auano to curse.

"Shit! I can't use my sword in a confined space like that; it's for swinging, not stabbing."

Ayano ran into the room we all slept in, and the faint murmurs of a conversation came out of the room for a minute.

Ayano soon returned with Minami, Yuki-chan's quiet neighbor. She was carrying the nail gun with both hands; the plastic grip had been removed and replaced with half of a crutch, making a crude stock for mitigating recoil.

"...open the door."

Her voice was so quiet, it was hard to hear her over the scratching of the door. I leaned over and pushed the door in, flinching back in fear, as though the zed was right there.

Of course, it wasn't, and the mint-haired girl walked into the room to the translucent shower stall that was the source of the noise.

"Someone throw this open...stay out of the way though..."

Misao swallowed the last of her toast and sidled up alongside Minani, grasping the handle to the stall.

"Ready Minami?"

She nodded, adjusting the nail gun so that it was more stable.

Misao threw the door open with a bang, revealing a spidery-looking thing with arms and legs at awkward angles.

It saw us and lunged at Minami, who aimed straight and pulled the trigger. With a resounding THUMP the nail exited the gun and embedded itself in the thing's skull, sening it flying out the window of the bathroom. Everyone let go of a breath they'd been holding, and we inspected the shower stall. It had deep gouge marks ins done places, but not deep enough or rough enough to cut oneself if we touched it.

We closed and locked the window before we ate breakfast, which was a large, noisy affair.

After I was full of food and debating what to do next, Scully stood and walked to the end of the table, turning to us.

"As you all know, we're in the middle of a waiting game. Waiting to see if they're gonna off the whole bloody island or not. If they are, we're gonna haul bloody ass and try to get into the water before the fireworks start. Or, if they're not, survive this bloody outbreak, and assist the military crews that would inevitably come after to clean up the mess."

He turned to Yuki-chan, his gas mask belaying no emotions.

"Miss, do you 'appen to have an XM radio? I know a channel on there that's a live broadcast from the UN headquarters."

I looked around the room. There was a small LG tv in the corner of the ceiling, facing the table.

"Couldn't we just try the TV, see if that's sending anything?"

Everyone looked at me. Konata giggled a little bit, even.

"She has a point there Scully. Hand me that remote Misao!"

Misao threw a small black remote to Kona-chan, who pointed it at the TV.

The tv clicked, and came to life. There was static, but after a second it cleared up.

On the screen was a man standing behind a podium speaking into a trio of microphones.

"According to the information gathered in the region, the majority of the industrial district is unaffected by the outbreak. Unlike the permanent solution invented by the UN for the initial release of the Horzine virus, we have a different solution.

We are deploying Special Assault Teams specifically outfitted with anti-zed weaponry to major cities in Japan to stabilize the situation there. Upon reaching the point where survivors are safe and can fend for themselves, the teams will receive reinforcements and head into the country to wipe out any zed that remain.

The first team to deploy set off 3 hours ago for Tokyo to locate and assist survivors and secure assets in the region. The next team is setting out for Okinawa as we speak.

This team is actually a former British SAS unit that joined the JSDF family after they fought their way out of Britain. They are highly trained, and know how to fight the zeds quickly and efficiently.

We will be sending out more teams on a regular schedule, including American and Canadian special forces units that volunteered to help in the reclamation of Japan from the Horzine virus.

With this, Operation: Crossroads is a go! We thank you for your support during this calamitous time, and would like to remind anyone still watching this to barricade their homes, stock up on food, and avoid contact with zeds!

Furthermore, the JSDF advises civilians to procure and use any weaponry possible to defend themselves from zeds.

This PSA will repeat for the next 7 days, updated with any new information as it becomes available to us.

Hello! This is Suzaku Kuroki of the JSDF, here with a special message for the Japanese people. According-"

The message began to loop, and we all looked at each other.

Scully snorted in his gas mask; it was an odd sound.

"Well, ain't that a message from the arse of the non-existent lord! Alrighty then! Forget what I just said. We're gonna want to shore up what safe haven we've got here, but we'll need supplies to do that. Anyone want to help me scrounge about in the houses around 'ere? I'm thinking we'll make spiked barricades, then mount 'em to the gates. Ain't nothin gonna get through that!"

Everyone agreed, but it looked like no one wanted to go with him. Summoning up what little courage I had, I stood up from the table and went up to him.

"I...I'll help you Scully!...Though I don't have a weapon, and I might mess up, I'll try my best!"

I looked up into his gas mask, hearing a faint chuckle coming from within.

"Aye, lass, that's the spirit! You may not got the strength for a clobberin' stick, but you look like a real sharp one; I'll get you covered, and you work those brain cells on some real good contraptions, ay lass?"

We started to leave the house as I nodded.

"So where you wanna search first, lass?"

I looked up and down the street, initially dismissing a building on the corner, a hotel, but my eyes always wandered back to its now-shattered glass facade, yearning to probe at what lays inside.

I pointed to the building in question, beginning to walk down the sidewalk to it.

"This one. I don't know why, it just feels like there's something in there I need to find. Like it's calling to me."

I turned to look at Scully, who swung randomly at the air, hitting an invisible zed who was between us. I flinched back in surprise, but he just shrugged.

"That blue cardigan you're wearing, it contrasts with them invisible bitches, makes 'em easy to see."

I looked down at said cardigan. Kagami had an identical one; we had been given them for our birthday this year. What an odd, but useful trait.

We stepped carefully through the shattered glass windows into a lavish lobby. It was completely ruined, but hints of former grandeur remained. A crystal chandelier had fallen from the ceiling and hit the marble floor, breaking into a million pieces. The whole floor was covered in a sickly red sheen of blood. The elevator doors were pried open, revealing the empty elevator shaft beyond it. At the end of the lobby was the stairs, lit with emergency lights.

"You sure you want to do this lass? I wouldn't be the first one to tell you the place looks like shit, but you really want to?"

I just grabbed his gloved hand and pulled him along up the stairs to the next floor.

"Of course I'm sure, I need to find whatever it is that's in here."

The second floor wasn't much better, with the only light coming from emergency lighting on the ceiling.

The floor was covered in bags and suitcases, long abandoned by their occupants.

I popped open the first one, finding nothing of value. The second and third ones were the same, but the fourth had a canister of hairspray and some PVC pipe in it. I handed these to Scully, who put the items in his bag.

"Oooooh, hairspray cannons, I like the way your mind works, lass."

"Its not here...let's check the rooms."

"What do you think you're gonna find lass?"

Scully kicked open the first room on the floor, sweeping it for zeds. After he gave the okay, I came in.

Whoever had been living in the room had a serious Jackie Chan collection...

I poked around until I found a section of carpet that didn't sound right. I peeled it back to reveal a large suitcase tucked underneath the floor under a pile of dirty laundry.

The suitcase had a lock on it, but Scully grabbed a hairpin from the bathroom and picked the lock in under a minute.

And there, lying in pristine glory, was a handgun.

In the case was a note that read "Mess this job up and there'll be hell to pay.  
>If it has blood, make it bleed.<br>Oyabun"

Scully bent down to look at the prize.

"Christ, lass, you sure as he'll know how to pick 'em. Yakuza's hotel room, and he had a fully stocked M93 with a couple dozen clips to boot! Why don't you take the gun, I'm better with clobberin' anyways."

I just shook my head as I closed the case and stood up with it.

"I think Minami should have it; she's the best with guns anyways."

We exited the hotel room to go to the next, but Scully grabbed by shoulder a whacked a zed that been crouched in the shadow.

As she fell, I watched for any more zeds, but Scully gave the okay, so we stepped carefully into the next room and latched the door behind us.

We turned around to see a Gorefast eating whoever had been in the bed previously, their entrails all over the wall.

"Oh bloody hell..."

Scully's snide remark attracted the attention of the tall red zed, who charged at us, its' arm nothing but elongated, sharp bone. Scully ran to the side and latched onto its head and elbow, preventing it from swinging at anyone. He dragged it across the floor like a child would a large doll, kicked the window out with his foot, and threw the whole monster bodily out the window. I watched it fall directly onto a lamppost, impaling it through the chest and killing it (again?) instantly. Its limbs scattered across the street, the blood apparent against the black asphalt of the street.

"Well that was just peachy."

I had already begun to look for anything useful, and again found a box in the same place, this one much longer and thinner. Scully picked the lock again and its contents were revealed: a pair of serrated blades, maybe short swords.

Again, a note, written in English.

"If it can speak, make it scream."

Well, that's just morbid. I offered the blades to Scully.

"Oh fuck to the YES. I dunno how you did it, but you chose the one place with Yakuza goons leaving their shit behind. Damn, the bastards are sharp!" He had poked the tip of one the serrated edges, eliciting a droplet of blood from his finger.

"Or maybe they're dead Scully. This stuff was hidden, so they might have not even been around or alive to pick it up."

I walked back to the door to exit the room. Scully walked up behind me, holding his new toys in a reverse grip, looking for the entire world like a deranged hazmat guy with ninja swords.

"Or that."

He pointed down the hallway at a crowd of zeds that were catching our scent and following it around and into the first room.

"Bloody hell, get back to the stairs! Let's head to the roof!"

We dashed down the hallway to the stairway at the opposite end and took the steps 2 at a time to reach the roof.

Scully threw the door shut, but a second later a piercing scream shattered the glass on the door and blew Scully back a couple feet.

I went behind the door and opened the suitcase I had, pulling out the gun. It was such a foreign object to me, but at the same time, I could feel how it worked, to some extent. I pulled out a long metal object that was filled to the top with bullets, carefully inserting it into the bottom of the gun. It stuck out of the bottom, but it had clicked securely, so I assumed that was normal. I tried pulling the trigger experimentally, but nothing happened. I looked at the side of the gun, but could not determine what was wrong. For some odd reason, I pulled back on the upper portion of the gun until a sharp "click!" came from the gun. I somehow knew that it was now ready to fire, but did not want to waste any bullets. Getting a better grip on the gun, holding it in both hands, I stood to the side of the door some ways back, mentally preparing myself for whatever horrors were beyond the door.

When the first zed made it through the door, an anorexic lady with a straightjacket binding her arms to her torso, Scully dashed forwards and used the dual blades like a pair of scissors and neatly removed her head.

A whole mess of zeds spewed forth from the door, forcing Scully back. I took aim at a Gorefast that was approaching him and pulled the trigger on the gun.

TATATAT!

I only pulled the trigger once, but a burst of 3 rounds found itself in the Gorefast, downing it easily.

My confidence had a boost there, and I was soon picking off zeds left and right...until I ran out of ammo. I ran back to get another magazine, hurriedly pushing the next one in. I felt a hand on my shoulder that definitely wasn't Scully's, and turned around, wrenching my shoulder out of reach, and knocking the Clot off balance; I shot at it, sending it careening over the lip of the building.

I looked back to Scully, who was now jumping over rockets shot from some weird zed with a cannon on its arm. I raised the gun to shoot the back of its head, but Scully called out "Don't, it'll cone after ye, I can dodge these buggers for as long as I need to!"

I stated back, getting a few Clots coming up the stairs, watching Scully's duel with the zed...what was it called again? I think Konata called them Husks.

Finally Scully managed to cut off the arm with the cannon, causing it to flail around on its own on the ground, shooting rockets into the sky before finally lying still in a pool of molten tar partially created from the heat emanating from the cannon . The Husk continued attempting to fight Scully, but he jumped on its' back and stabbed it in the head, downing it with a 'WHUMP' as it hit the ground.

Scully got up and flashed a thumbs up from across the roof, before grabbing the Husk's arm and cutting the flesh away from the cannon type thing, leaving just a mess of mechanical parts with a wire attached to it that had been embedded in the Husk's arm. He shoved the mechanical wonder into his backpack without even so much as looking at it.

"Oi! Say lass, we got quite a payload from this! Let's get back to the house, real quick like."

Scully went back down the stairs first, but came up again before I could follow. He looked a tad singed.

"Bastard torched the stairwell; we're stuck up here now!"

I went to the edge of the roof, looking down. It was a 4-story drop, ending only in concrete. I went to the other side, seeing the same fate. Finally, the side facing the alleyway behind it gave paydirt.

A row of large dumpsters were open, and their contents appeared to be clothes and other soft(er) things, like mattresses. I walked back to the open suitcase behind the stairs and deposited the gun into it, closing the case and locking it securely. I went back to the edge, carefully dangling it beyond the edge, down as far as possible, before dropping it into the dumpster. It landed with a muffled banging sound into the dumpster, indicating that nothing very metallic was in the dumpster.

I looked back to Scully, who was taking a different approach. He had replaced the twin blades into the case and tucked it inside his jacket, zipping it up afterwards. He took his gas mask off to reveal….another mask. A ski mask with a skeleton printed on it. I thought he was a bit crazy, but this confirmed it. He grinned, and I could see his teeth….which were surprisingly good for being British. Almost on par with Ayano's teeth, actually. He stuffed the gas mask into his jacket as well, and peered over the edge. He looked back at me.

"Well, it's probably not safe, but staying up here isn't either. On the count of three, lass?"

We stood next to each other above the dumpster when I started to have second thoughts.

"One….."

"Wait, I don't really—"

"THREE!"

He pushed me over the edge and I spun around to face upwards, seeing him in a spread-eagle position, like he was skydiving.

_I had so much to LIVE for!._

We hit the dumpster full of linens with a surprisingly loud BANG, but other than an ache in my back, most likely from the sudden compression and the shock of falling 10 meters, I was fine. Scully was crawling up the side of the dumpster before I had even reacted to falling, and I had to scramble around for a couple of seconds before I found the case containing the handgun in between a few trash bags full of donated clothing.

Scully gave me a hand in swinging my legs over the edge of the dumpster, and I landed on the ground awkwardly, managing not falling over by leaning forward onto the palm of my hand.

We peered around the alleyway, to the right, which led to the street Yuki-chan's house is on, and to the left, which let out on the next street over. Right before the opening to the next street was a couple sheets of scrap metal. I nudged Scully with my elbow, nodding at said metal pieces.

"Would those be good for the barricades you wanted to make? If they're thin enough, we can make strips of it into spikes."

Scully gave me a pat on the back and ran over to the metal sheets, picking them all up with one hand. His gloves prevented him from getting sliced open, as when he turned the sheets and the morning sun hit them, they looked to only be about half a centimeter thick each.

"Alright, let's get back now…..that main road is crawling with invisible bitches though, you might wanna get your piece out again, and make sure it's full of lead, ready for rush delivery into the nearest creepy crawly things!."

I complied, quickly opening the case and taking out the gun. I ejected the magazine, still maneuvering the mechanisms awkwardly and slowly, and inserted a fresh magazine, before replacing the partially-full one back inside the case, taking out 2 more full magazines, putting them in my pockets, and closing the case, carrying it like a purse in my elbow.

As soon as we went into the main road, we saw a slight problem. In the form of a large hulking zed with a chainsaw beating on the gates to Yuki-chan's house, and everyone else fighting it on the other side of the gate, which was thick enough to withstand the blade constantly spinning across it, but just barely.

"Oh for the love of blarney stones…" Scully muttered this odd statement under his breath but ran up behind the zed and threw the plates to the ground behind it.

They slammed into the ground with a deafening clang, which hurt my ears, and certainly alerted the zed, which turned around to look at what the sound was. I could see the others' efforts had given it several wounds on its torso and head, but it was not looking anywhere near to dead yet, and there were no ceiling fans around to bash its head in with. Scully stripped his jacket off as he lead the monstrous thing away from the gates, taking out the blades he had acquired and throwing the case to me, which I managed to catch with one hand.

"Get inside the gate lass! Let the ones with blades take care of this one! Take potshots with the other one!" Each sentence he gave out was accentuated by a dodge away from the swing of the now-angry beast.

The gates, now free of obstructions, were opened quickly and Yuki-chan, Ayano, Misao, sis, and Kona-chan all ran out with their weapons, or in Kona-chan's case, walked, her large sword, bigger than herself, wobbling with every step. I ran by them inside the gate and Minami closed it before she propped the nail gun against a slot in between two vertical rods in the gate, steadying herself against the gate as she fired at the zed, getting headshots every time, but only making the large creature even more mad.

I fumbled with what I was carrying, dropping it on top of a hedge, and flipping open the gun case to find what I was looking for: A thing that attached to the bottom of the gun and allowed you to put your shoulder into it to make it more accurate…..a stock! Yeah, a stock! I affixed to the gun quickly and got comfortable, leaning against the gate next to Minami, taking shots at the thing.

RATATA

RATATA

I was kind of put-off by the fact that I was wasting ammo shooting like that, and paused for a second to see if there was any way to change that. There was a switch that was on "3" and also had "SAFE", "1" and "AUTO". I put to "1", which had the results I wanted.

It also made much less stress on my shoulder each time I fired, allowing me to get the zed more times.

Konata and Ayano were side-by-side, trying to get in hits on its back while it was lunging at, and missing, Scully, but weren't doing very much. Yuki-chan jumped up and bashed its head in with a metal baseball bat, and while it stumbled a bit and looked extremely beat-up, it didn't seem to want to go down. The straw that broke the camel's back was when Scully dashed back a couple meters and removed something from his bag. It was the Husk Cannon. He yanked something back on it and the end of the barrel started emanating orange and red sparks. I stopped aiming at the zed to watch Scully. He ran backwards several feet, the lumbering giant attempting to catch up with him, but after several meters were in between the zed and everyone else, Scully let loose one of the rockets contained in the weapon right into the zed's face. It screamed in pain and was simultaneously lit aflame by the shower of sparks and flammable material. It tried to get the burning detritus off its' face, dropping the chainsaw in the process, which turned off the instant it left its hand, but it was no use: It stumbled around blind until Konata and Ayano sliced at the back of its legs, bringing it down with a boom that echoed across the rooftops.

As they started getting closer to the house, as the fight had brought them halfway down the street, I saw a red shadow begin to follow Kona-chan and sis, who were walking side by side, Kona-chan holding her sword bishounen-style. It was getting closer to them and I could see it through the space separating their faces.

Without thinking, I brought the gun up to my face again and shot once, hitting the invisible zed right square in the head, blowing it into bloody gibs and freaking sis and Kona-chan out, who were not expecting that.

"Tsukasa, what the hell was that! You could have killed us!"

"Woaaaaah, that was AWESOME!"

Guess which person said which?

I just giggled apologetically. What did she want me to do, not shoot it and watch someone die? For being the older and "wiser" sister, she's short-sighted about things a lot…..not that it matters in the long run…..

"Sorry sis, I knew I wasn't going to hit you, and there was an invisible one behind you…."

It finally sank in with sis at that moment, once the gates had closed behind us and Scully had set to work preparing the barricades and retrieving the chainsaw from the ground, what exactly I had just done, and what I was holding.

"TSUKASA IS THAT A FREAKING GUN!"

Konata started giggling at this, but stopped when I just grabbed the case it had been in, and held the gun aloft for all to see.

"Yes, we found it in a hotel room. It was probably Yakuza; we found a weird note with it too. Mister Scully got some new dagger type things from the same place."

Konata just looked at the sleek silver handgun, eying it from multiple angles.

"Wow, that's not legal in Japan. Or anywhere outside of Texas or Lebanon, for that matter. That's a Beretta M93 machine pistol! It has the 33 round magazine, removable stock, and full-auto conversion kit, too!"

Sis elbowed Konata, stopping any further…doting, I guess the word would be….on the gun I was holding.

"Don't encourage her! Tsukasa, do you know how dangerous that is?"

Okay, now I'm starting to get kind of, no, really pissed at sis. She's always treating me like I'm some third-rate imitation of her, trying to keep me down and, maybe not intentionally, taking all the glory for anything we both do.

"Yes, I do, and I'm also aware that we're in the middle of trying to survive in the middle of what functionally equates to a zombie apocalypse, and you're trying to tell me that I shouldn't have a method to defend myself, because you think I'll hurt myself or hurt someone else. I'm not a fucking baby sis, I'm the same age as you are, and yet you try to treat me like one because of some superiority complex you've been nursing for Kami knows how long. I'm sick of it, and I'm sick of having to live underneath the shadow of your ego that's so fucking inflated by meaningless bullshit.

Mom only ever praised you, and I get "good enough" from fucking everyone, since no one thinks _Tsukasa_ could do anything of note. She's just the younger sister to _precious FUCKING Kagami. _I still love you and all sis, but you really need to learn that I'm just as _**FUCKING CAPABLE **_as you are, and I have my own strengths and talents, and if one of those is using a freaking handgun, so be it. Actually, concerning that."

I walked over to Minami while everyone else was in a shocked silence, handed her the case and the gun itself, with the words "You should have this, you'll be better off with it.", receiving the nail gun from her, and walking back to Kagami and Konata, who were absolutely dumbfounded. The yard was still silent.

"There, now you don't need to worry about it. That was my intention from the moment I found that gun, but no, you had to act all uppity _**FUCKING **_uppity and make it sound like you were going to try to influence my decisions and make me some satellite goddamn drone to your _**PLAINLY SUPERIOR **_being."

Kagami looked about ready to cry, Misao and Ayano looked like I had just hit them with a frying pan, Scully was holding back laughter, Yuki-chan was trying not to giggle, and Minami gave me a small smile from the corner.

I looked back to sis. She was shielding her eyes from me, but it was obvious that she was sobbing. She turned tail and ran into the house without a word, slamming the door shut behind her.

Everyone was on me in seconds, with varying words.

"Honestly, Kagamiin had that coming, but I guess I should apologize too for kind of always thinking of you like that….sorry Tsukasa." That was Konata, which I just smiled and nodded to.

"Ahahahaha! I saw that bombshell coming from an ocean away! As soon as she started cuttin' you off when we first met, I saw some issues like it was clear as day! Don' worry lass, you'll get 'em resolved in due time, and you'll both be stronger because of it." Scully, which I took the words with a nod and a weak smile; I really did hope we could resolve this without needing the untimely demise of one or both of us….I've been reading too many bad romance novels, I think. No, wait, I watched Battle Royale last week. Damnit, twins who commit suicide! Stop being analogues to our situation!

"…..You hit the hammer on the head with that one Tsukasa…Hiiragi has always kind of put one over on you, huh?" Misao, who had an "oops, never bothered to check that" look.

"I'm sure she didn't mean it in a negative way Tsukasa! She's just really protective of you is all….I think." Ayano, who was fumbling with the sheathe for her sword. I noted she couldn't bring herself to make eye contact with me.

"….Thank you for the gun Tsukasa….I'm sure you'll make up with your sister…." Minami, who gave a shy smile before going in the house, muttering something about cleaning the gun.

Yuki-chan beckoned to me as everyone went about their separate businesses'. She lead me around the back of the house to the back, where she brought me to sit in a gazebo, taking a seat next to me and putting her hands together on her lap.

"Tsukasa…how do you really feel about the way Kagami-san treats you?"

Oh, not this shit…well, if it makes things smoother for everyone else…

"I…..I don't know. She's always been there for me, yeah, but she always seems to just overshadow me, make me feel like I'm in the background, and nothing I try to aspire to achieve ever means anything because she's already done it and done it better too. Whenever I would try to be my own person she would try to bring me back into the stream of activities _she _was interested in, not ever caring that maybe we had different interests…..

I just want her to be able to respect my decisions and not make me an add-on to her, which it has felt like for a good while…..Does this help you, Yuki-chan?"

I looked into her sparkling blue eyes, before she smiled, and got up, after which we went into the house through the back entrance.

"I'm going to go talk to Kagami-san…..maybe you should start on making something for lunch? Anything you can use in the kitchen is fine with me." She giggled with the last sentence, before making her way up the stairs, Minami right behind her with the nail gun, most likely as protection than anything else.

I turned into the kitchen and started taking stock to figure out what to make for lunch; I finally decided to make curry.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Holy shit. 5,648 words of story, with only a little bit of it being retarded "plot-advancing elements". Damn. "Fireteam:Probably" (Pun on Mission: Impossible) will be joining the cast starting with next chapter…**

**They are OC's from DoubleBoxEven's amazing Lucky Star fic "Killing Star" which is KF/LS before KF even had a freaking section on here! Anyone reading this should check it out, it's pretty freaking awesome.**

**Eighty Eight, Maniac, ArthurDent, JL, and Mike are the oh-so-lovable crew that was shipped to Tokyo! Unfortunately, Operation: Crossroads has more than its' fair share of assholes trying to screw it up….as if the zeds didn't already do a fine enough job already!**

**Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and if you left a review, I would give you an internet cookie! :D**

**Bye-nii~**


	8. Doesn't work? Not broken enough

K,Stars on the Floor

Chapter 7: If it doesn't work, it's not broken enough (and if it does, it needs enough tweaking to break it again)

"Alright boys! I'm dropping you in hell pretty soon!" The pilot's voice came through our headphones in a haze of static. Everyone looked at each other, shared a couple smirks, grins, or in JL's case, simply continued rolling matches back and forth in his hands. At this point, no one was even going to ask why.

We were in a helicopter flying into Saitama, just barely clearing the rooftops of the higher buildings. The landscape below was desolate, with the fires long burned out and the moan and groans of those _fucking _zeds audible even over the engine of the helicopter. We took a quick fly-through of the district to look for survivors on any rooftops, but finding one, we were now looking for a decent open area to touch down in on ground level and start clearing out these goddamn monsters. Sure, we did it once before, but the population here was a lot higher, and the survival rate was probably low, if not lower than before. We had requested a gunship to be able to thin them out before even landing, but the request was denied.

Part of this operation was a supply network that was being established at points throughout the region, focusing on Tokyo and Okinawa. They rounded up some real crazies (they made JL look scholarly), outfitted em with guns and shoved em in APC's full to the brim with weapons and armor, and they're gonna start trudging around the city. They're 100% zed-proof, they used them last time, but now they're armed for attacking zeds as well. We were each outfitted with a retinal camera that would document our kills, and allot money to each of our accounts based on that; when we got to one of these APC's, they'd be able to restock us. It's a nice system, and lets you take your mind off the job a bit; makes it feel kind of like a video game.

I looked to Arthur and JL on the other bench in the helicopter; they seem to take the 'just a game' metaphor to heart a bit more than us.

The helicopter pilot's voice broke through my thoughts and musings.

"Alright fellas, I'm touching down in 30 seconds! Give 'em hell for me!"

I looked up. We were now skirting a commercial district and flying towards a multi-lane road that cut through the middle of a residential district. There were zed corpses everywhere; I saw a Husk missing an arm and burned to a crisp, Stalkers with their heads missing, and a goddamn Scrake dead on the ground.

The pilot landed in the road, not even shutting off the engines, urging us to leave. I was out the hatch first, carrying the lightest load. My dual pistols were in my holsters, and the semi-automatic M107 rifle was cradled in my arms. I performed a quick check to make sure nothing was going to kill us immediately, and nodded my head, giving the thumbs up to the others.

Arthur stepped out nimbly, or as nimbly as you can when carrying two grenade launchers and a couple bandoliers of grenades. His brown hair had grown out in the past few years since we met during the initial outbreak, and he wouldn't let the barbers in the JSAF cut it, so it now hung down to his eyes. He grinned after looking at the scene before us, before turning to me.

"Just like old times, eh Eighty-Eight? Bet you I can get a higher kill count again." He stuck his tongue out jokingly, but I just shrugged. He always held it over our heads that his official kill-count was higher than mine, but he's quick to forget his job is to eliminate the garbage zeds, while I have to focus on taking down the real nasty ones.

JL climbed out to join us, his uniform somehow already burnt around the edges, his raging pink hands almost shining in the early afternoon sun. He brought his favorite submachine gun with him, an Uzi outfitted with incendiary rounds and a long magazine. He also had special firebombs that he made in his spare time; he'd take empty grenades and fill them with chemicals, and when you tossed them, they were worse than Molotovs in bringing the fiery, fiery hurt to the zeds.

Mike came next, wanting nothing more but to get back on the ground. See, Mike was _deathly _afraid of flying. He had been sandwiched between me and Maniac, but he was still scared shitless. Nothing you can really do about that. He had his submachine guns as well, but these don't shoot fire. He has an MP5 and an MP7, and both are outfitted with painkiller-filled needles that'll pick you up in a pinch. He was also wearing a full suit of combat armor, and he was by no means a small guy to start with. He was a walking wall with that armor on; one time he took a Scrake's chainsaw for a good 10 seconds before Arthur got some 'nades into the back of its head. He's crazy, in his own special way.

Finally, the big man on board jumped out of the heli, and walked oh so slowly over to us, mainly because of the amount of crap he was carrying.

Maniac, the resident close-quarters expert, macho man, and mule, didn't get his name for nothing. At some point last go around with the zeds, he sawed off the barrels of his double-barreled shotgun so he could carry more stuff. The elephant gun went from being 10 kilos to about 4 kilos, and he had the time of his life with the thing. Currently, the elephant gun was in a holster made for large revolvers, and he was holding his AA12 shotgun. He used it in semi-auto mode exclusively, claiming that "automatics are no fun". He was also carrying another shotgun strapped to his back, and his combat vest was obviously stuffed to the brim with shotgun shells.

"Alright, gang's all here! Let's go break some heads!" Maniac, enthusiastic as always, put his shotgun above his head and fistpumped with it, looking like a Raider, but without the yellow gun.

I shrugged, looking around the area. The bodies were all clustered near a house that had been practically ripped apart. Whatever kind of fight happened here, it looked like the zeds lucked out on new meat, that's for sure.

I beckoned the rest of the group towards it as I picked my way through the sea of bodies myself. Somehow, Maniac got there first, no doubt simply stepping over and on them. He was the only one wearing combat boots; the rest of us didn't like to be weighed down like that, though they did help in times like this. It was worth noting that Maniac had rainbow-colored laces on his boots. He's a little too lighthearted for his own good.

The door to the house was laid on the wall next to the empty doorframe; it appeared to have been ripped off by something pretty big.

The interior was even worse than the exterior. Absolute chaos balled up into a 10 by 10 space. The furniture was absolutely demolished, not a single piece left in recognizable form besides the couch, which was ripped in half and thrown to opposite ends of the room. The amount of blood and corpses was almost staggering. Upwards of a hundred of them were in that room alone, and a hole in one wall showed the kitchen was the same way. The stairs to the second floor were crushed, only the sides of each step were intact. JL skipped up the sides and went off to explore the upper level of the house.

I nodded at Arthur. "Go with him; make sure he stays out of trouble." He nodded, going up the stairs carefully, holding onto the handrail extremely tightly. I looked back to the kitchen, seeing Mike rooting around in the cupboards.

"What're you doing Mikey? We got ration bars!"

His head came out of the cupboard and he stood up. "I know, but this place has already been looted. All the canned goods are gone, and the marks on the refrigerator make it look like magnets that were removed recently, maybe a few days at most."

I walked into the kitchen to see what he meant. Sure enough, there were bright white spots among the darker, more dirty sections. Whatever was on the fridge, had been removed, and not very long ago.

A shout from upstairs made us look up, and Maniac to stop whatever he was doing.

"HOLY BALLS! GET UP HERE!" Arthur didn't sound panicked, just surprised, but nonetheless we all went up the stairs carefully, Maniac going last, to make sure he didn't break the stairs on us.

Arthur and JL were peeking in a door at the end of the hallway, and JL was murmuring "No worries, the 80's are no match for a good fan…", while petting his gun. Yeah, nothing weird there.

"Guys, you are NOT going to believe what's behind this door." Arthur was grinning from ear to ear like a kid on Christmas Day, except the only things Arthur liked was blowing shit up and killing zeds.

"Let me guess, a dead Scrake?" Maniac's drawl did nothing to make his smile falter, which made me worry a tad bit. But just a tad. Arthur threw open the door.

"It's even better; a dead Fleshpound." Lo and behold, in the middle of the floor of the bedroom, was a Fleshpound with the ceiling fan on top of it. Shards of glass stuck out from its head at odd angles, and it had leaked a bunch of its' juices all over the floor, turning most of the carpet a nasty orange color.

"Shit…." Maniac captured the feel in a single word. Whoever had done this had the right idea, that's for sure.

JL ran up to the body, kneeling down on its chest and pulling out a syringe. He inserted it into the adrenaline pump on its chest and filled it completely with the sludge-like liquid. He pulled out a vial and expunged it into the glass container, repeating a few times until it was full, before pulling out a stopper and sealing the bottle, slipping it into his vest. He looked up at us with a lopsided grin, showing ogg his gold teeth; all 5 of them.

"Pounders' adrenaline is highly flammable; fun will be had with this." We just nodded and chuckled. JL may be crazy, but he's a mad genius when he wants to be.

We headed back down the stairs, looking around again and walking out of the ruined house.

"Well, what now? Someone went toe-to-toe with a FP and won, so you want to try to find them before we start cleaning house?" Mike was looking around, and seemed to be looking down to a 4 lane road that branched off of the road we were on.

I was too busy looking at Maniac, who was putting his AA12 on his back and grabbing his smaller shotgun, an M92 pump-action. The fire-axe on his back clinked softly as it hit the side of the drum mag of the AA12.

"What's up Maniac? Any reason you're pulling out 'Old Faithful'?" He nodded up the road. A bunch of Clots were stumbling around the corner, with a couple of Bloats teetering along behind them. Arthur was talking to JL and hadn't noticed them yet. Maniac nodded to me, walking off.

"Pull."

I brought my rifle to bear on the Bloats, taking out both with headshots, in the space of a second. Arthur jerked his head up in surprise, before quickly giving me the puppy-dog look. Ahead already, hell yeah.

As soon as they were rendered headless and no longer a threat, Maniac dashed up and unloaded 5 shells into the crowd of Clots, blowing away several with each shot, before calmly reloading as he walked back to us.

"Well that wasn't so hard. Twenty two down, 4 million to go!"

Arthur broke away from JL, walking up to me with the same look as before.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you? I could've gotten those with like, 4 shots, but no, you guys had to get the jump on me."

We just grinned like idiots. Maniac leaned down to talk to Arthur; the height difference was that significant. "Well, yeahhhhhh; can't have you getting all the glory this time around. Then again, with the numbers reported from this area alone, we'll probably have our hands full even if we get like 50 elite commandos or some shit. Don't worry your scraggly little head about it. Just focus on not accidentally blowing us all to smithereens while you're at it, alright?" He patted his head like he was a little kid, but Arthur waved him off, used to the teasing from him.

"Yeah, whatever…this place looks pretty much cleared out, you want to head into the residential areas now?"

Maniac picked himself up, all 300-odd pounds of him, and looked to Mike, who was using binoculars to look further down the road.

"Anything good Indiana?" Mike coughed, putting away the binoculars into his pants pocket.

"I told you, that's the dog! And yeah, I think I found the trail of zed bodies our mysterious kung-fu friends left behind." I looked up the road, eyeing the smatterings of Stalker and Clot corpses, even the occasional Gorefast.

Arthur looked through the scope on his grenade launcher, then up to Mike.

"What makes you say kung-fu friends? A lot of those things are missing heads, and I don't think even Bruce Lee could take someone's head off with a punch."

Mike shrugged as we all started up the road.

"Yeah, but the gun control laws are pretty strict here. They're nuts about martial arts and shit though, so you'd think every couple of people had swords and shit, and a lot of the necks on these zeds have clean cuts across them." He pointed at a Gorefast as we walked by; sure enough, the slice was almost completely straight, not a ragged clobbering like an axe or a blunt object would make.

Mike pointed at Stalker who was beaten up pretty badly. "See this one? This was probably from a crowbar or something else that didn't have a point. The bruising is significant, and the decapitation to it is rough, more of a smashed removal than a cut."

We came to a wider street that had piles of small zeds thrown around and ripped apart quite nicely.

"Well shit, looks like someone's way ahead of us." Maniac was more or less referring to the collections of…uh…..'fluids' on the street, spilling rather freely just _all over_. The street was 3 lanes on both sides, and the majority of the road was covered in yellow and brown flesh and green and red blood, bile, and bodily fluids. Someone had obviously had a ball out here.

There was a clunk as Arthur loaded a 40mm grenade into his M79, holding it out at an angle.

"There's a Stalker over next to that building, feeding on that Gorefast against the wall. I bet you I can hit it." With that, he pulled the trigger, electing a _thump _as the explosive was propelled in a slight arc at the Gorefast. It exploded with a subdued _boomf_, blowing apart the wall and sending a previously invisibly Stalker flying through the air and landing not 10 feet in front of us. Arthur did a mock cowboy stance, blowing the tip of his launcher.

Maniac laughed. "Shit kid, since when could you spot Stalkers from anywhere except too close?"

He shook his hair out of his eyes, clucking his tongue. "I'm telling you, it's the hair."

We continued walking down the street, looking at each building carefully. There was a hotel that was pretty much ruined, and some zed corpses hanging over the side of the roof. I nudged Maniac, pointing to them.

"They're dropping like flies. Gonna make any bets on who it was by, and how many?"

Maniac looked at the roof as we walked down the middle of the road, JL and Mike watching our sides for Stalkers. Maniac rubbed the stubble on his chin, looking around.

"Well, I'd guess maybe 5 guys…..with swords and knives….aaaaaand at least two of them are ninjas."

Arthur and Mike laughed, but Maniac shook his head. "You guys think I'm kidding, but whoever can take down a Fleshpound without guns is a ninja, a pirate, both, or a robot. And seeing as this is Japan, it's not pirates, and all of their robots are huge, so not that either. Add to that all of the clean slices on these bitches, and I say a team of ninjas. Color-coded, teenage ninjas."

Even I started laughing at this. Maniac's logic was only slightly flawed on that, as ridiculous as it sounded. Anything was possible, but it was most likely a couple of sumo wrestlers or something.

"Oi, behind you!"

I spun around, seeing a very unwelcome sight. At the other end of the street, a Scrake with his saw held high, a couple Husks, and about a dozen Clots making a meat shield between us and the kindly old butcher.

"Arthur, you're up!" I crouched down and leveled my rifle, while JL threw a firebomb out and Maniac ran forward, slightly to the side so he wasn't blocking my aim. Another _thump_ and three quarters of the Clots dissolved into red mist, their blood coating the street some more. Not like it mattered at this point. It was pretty bloody by this point.

"Mike, you got this!" Mike just sighed with a wry look, running past everyone, outpacing Maniac easily, and shooting several rounds into the Scrake, making it _very _angry. It started to chase after him, but there was no contest; Mike outpaced Scrakes easily, even when moving backwards, and lured them in for us to get the kill.

I popped the Husks' heads with two more shots from my rifle, the vertical fore-grip preventing almost all recoil, allowing me to snap off both shots in quick succession. I put my rifle on my back after turning the safety on, drawing out my pistols. The Scrake was the only one left now, only a few seconds into the encounter. Explosives weren't very useful against Scrakes, as we've come to discover through trial and error, and Arthur tagged out for JL, who quickly lit up the Scrake with his Uzi. Just one shot, not a whole hail of bullets. The hulking monster was lit aflame and stopped for a second to scratch at its burning flesh, giving Mike some time to double back to us. He ducked behind Maniac, who was finally coming up to the Scrake; he moved _slowwwwly _with all his guns. He had his double-barreled hunting shotgun out now, waiting for the Scrake to come within range.

I jumped up and shot it twice in the head, enraging it again and making it forget about Maniac. As it came forward, Maniac aimed the stubby gun at its head and unleashed both barrels into its head. It blew the Scrake's head clean off and sent its body reeling backwards before slumping backwards, its' chainsaw turning off upon falling from its' hand.

Maniac had already reloaded his guns and came back to us, where Mike finished injecting himself with a needle to freshen him up after the scrapes and bruises he got from being roughed up by the Scrake.

Mike and JL ran to the end of the street in the direction the zeds had come from, but came back, saying the next road over was empty, but also not covered in bodies. Or, as JL put it, "The playthings were not sufficient to cover the walkways of the not-yet-dead." Gotta love JL, thinking of zombies as playthings.

The sun was beginning to get low in the sky while we had been monkeying around with the Scrake. The shadows began to lengthen, and the groans and moans from the zeds began to multiply. The few remaining streetlamps that still worked began to flicker on, bathing the streets in an eerie orange glow, making the entrails on the ground seem almost cartoony.

We took out flashlights and JL put them in special mounts on his thin glasses, making them hands-free, and allowing us to remain alert. Upon walking to the opposite end of the street, we noticed a house down the road had lights on, and was surrounded by a tall gate.

In the road, was a massive slaughter-fest of zeds. All types of them, too. Countless Clots, dozens of Gorefasts, at least a dozen Bloats, a couple of Husks, even a goddamn Scrake was lying on a pile of Clots, its eyes bulging out and its face covered in deep lacerations and a hole right in the middle of its forehead.

A bullet wound, no doubt. But from what? Guns are _really _illegal around here….unlike back home. I have more guns than I do cooking utensils!

We scanned the area, only seeing a few Clots tripping over the masses of bodies, and dispatched them with a trio of rounds from Arthur's semi-automatic grenade launcher. He reloaded immediately after, leaving us in the quickly darkening street, with the one house with lights on, with the zeds keeping just out of sight of our flashlight beams.

"Eighty-Eight, you want to check out that house? Maybe we can get a place to crash without having to stand guard tonight."

Maniac came up beside me, staring at the house. I was more concerned with checking out the house itself. It was of the Western style, which by itself was uncommon here in Japan, but it was pretty large as well, easily 100 wide, but due to the buildings around us, I couldn't determine how deep the building was. The fence was about 10 feet tall, and was topped in wrought iron spikes, Victorian style. The gate was locked, but there was a light on in the house.

"Hey, the gate is locked. You guys wanna climb over?"

Maniac was looking at the gate, testing the strength of the gates with his hands. He tried to climb up it, but his immense weight kept him from making it up. The gates shook from the dead weight, but didn't budge.

"It's not budging. JL, you got anything to fix that?"

JL came up to the gate but shook his head. "No can do, my pretties tell me that it would be bad to rend the defenses useless as a duck with a flamethrower."

I just shook my head. JL was right, not about the flaming bird, but about the gate. If we blew it open, it would render the gate useless, leaving them open to attack from the zeds.

I took out my pistol and aimed carefully towards the house, and fired a round into the night. I listened. There was definitely movement in the house.

"What the hell was that?!"

We had all been settling in for the evening, but a sharp crack echoed throughout the house. It sounded like Tsukasa's pistol, but much louder, and a deeper tone. Almost like a big handgun from American action movies. Miyuki and myself had been getting some supplies out of the den and opened the window to peek outside.

We could see four or five figures standing in front of the gate, looking towards the house. They were of varying sizes, from one large one to a small and skinny one that couldn't be any taller than me. All of them had visible guns, and a lanky figure to the far right appeared to be holding a large black pistol that reflected off of the streetlamp's dim light.

I looked to Miyuki. She was looking back to me.

"….Well, do you think they're friendly?" I just kind of shrugged.

"Well, they could be those guys the government said were cleaning up out there, but they could be bandits or something. Do you have some binoculars or something?"

Miyuki was quick to hand me what I asked for, as they had been in a cupboard under the table, and soon I was looking through them at the motley crew standing at the gates.

They definitely weren't Japanese, that was for sure. They looked to be Americans, and in fact, there was a figure that had looked to be camouflaged, but was actually very dark-skinned, and was holding a small machine gun in one arm.

One of them called out, something amplifying their voice to be easily heard despite the distance.

"Hello? We're looking for a place to stay for the night. My name is Eighty-Eight, and I'm the leader of Irregular Squad One of the JSAF."

Miyuki looked thoughtful, and began to walk out of the room, where everyone else was sitting in the living room. They didn't seem to be aware of the unexpected visitors. She nodded to Scully, who got up from his perch on the couch and came out to the front hall.

"You rang ma'am?" Scully leaned against the woodwork as Miyuki turned to face him.

"Would you know anything about Irregular Squad One? They're standing outside."

Scully's face was one of absolute disbelief. Almost happy, but mostly disbelief. Yeah, he had his mask on still, but I just knew somehow.

"Irregular….Squad….One? How the bloody hell…bunch of weird guys, right?"

Miyuki pointed out the window, where they were standing beyond the gate. Scully just put his hands to his mask, almost like a screamer pose, but with a gas mask, of course. I had the feeling that if he hadn't been leaning over before, he certainly would have been now. He walked over to the door unsteadily, before ripping the door open and shouting out to the figures in the gathering night.

"Oy, you bloody wankers, when were you gonna come back for me, huh!?"

"Oy you bloody wankers, when were you gonna come back for me, huh!?"

The door of the house had been opened and a heavily accented British voice came out. The figure in the doorway was wearing all black clothing, almost invisible against the darkness of the room behind him. The voice sounded familiar though…..where had they heard it before….? It hit me.

Maniac beat me to it, though.

"SCULLY YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

The big man slammed his palms against the gate, shaking it violently. We were all surprised to see the British commando, whom we all believed to be dead.

A little bit of backstory is necessary for this particular case. When we were in Britain fighting the zeds during the first outbreak, there was a ragtag group of SAS that assisted us in London when we were stranded and the rest of group dead. Scully was a commando with a sharp tongue and an even sharper blade. When the rest of his group except for one Private Lewis and one Corporal Peterson got mauled by a Fleshpound, we took him into our crew until he fell off a rooftop in the industrial part of the city and we lost him. We thought him dead, but somehow he's right in front of us, in Japan.

I wasn't going to trust him just yet though. As he walked down the way to the gate, there were two girls walking behind him. One was about as tall as he was, had glasses, and vividly pink hair that was almost waist-length. The other one was much shorter, at least a head shorter than the pink-haired girl, and had dark blue hair that went almost to the ground.

Definitely not typical, but then again, this _is _Japan we're talking about here…my commanding officer has hair that defies the laws of gravity.

I leveled my gun on "Scully" as he reached the gate, the other two girls freezing behind him.

"Aw bloody hell, Eighty-Eight, trying to kill me on my own turf? Just bloody great."

The two girls looked very fearful, and upon closer inspection, their outfits were actually school uniforms of the sailor fuku style. The blue haired girl was holding a massive sword, almost certainly unwieldy for the small girl, but again, Japan, so she might be a ninja for all we know. Damnit, Maniac. The pink-haired one was completely open, which led me to believe she was not a fighter. Hopefully.

"No, Scully, if that's who you really are, I have a question for you. Who dies first?"

Scully looks at all of the rest of the crew, to JL who saluted, to Mike who shrugged, to Maniac who was too busy watching our backs to notice, and to Arthur, who was waggling his eyebrows at him.

Scully looked back to me, no emotions escaping his gas mask. He gave a thumbs up to the girls behind him.

"Who dies first? The mouthy arse with mummy problems, of course!"

That was the answer I wanted to hear. An old joke from years ago, when we were cornered in a football stadium, was that we were contemplating who would die first. Scully had determined that he would die first, because he liked to insult the zeds, and in turn draw their attention to him most of the time. Add to that his strained relationship with his mother, and you had a unique scenario from which I had discerned this to be the real, true, asshole DJ Scully. Or at least a worthy imposter. Hopefully the first one.

Everyone on the other side of the gate let out a sigh of relief when I put the gun down, before addressing those on the safe side of the gate.

"So….anyone want to let us in? That gunshot is probably going to attract some more lovelies, as you'd call them, and while we're more than well enough equipped to deal with them, it's already been a long enough day as it is and we'd like to be able to rest for the night before starting up some real serious work tomorrow."

"So all you lot are really being assigned to clean out the city? Ain't that the shit, I'd hate to be in your shoes. Though the thrill of survival is still fresh in the air, we're going to sit tight while you boys work your magic. I don't wanna get hit by any of Dent's shrapnel again either…." Scully nodded at Arthur, who shook his head sheepishly, sending his hair whipping around.

One of the darker days in our history, only a few days after we rescued him from basic training after it had been overrun by zeds, when the kid was only 16. He had fudged his age to join the military, and he accidentally hit Scully with some shrapnel from his M79 grenade launcher. We had to carry him for 4 miles before we found a first aid kit to patch him up. Scully took it in stride though, shrugging off the injury and not blaming Arthur for it. We all felt a little off talking about it though.

"Yeah, but we're not alone, the JSAF and some NATO forces are all pitching in to do the dirty work. This entire district is all our problem though. So can you open the gate? We'd like to not have to sleep with one eye open watching for Stalkers and Crawlers, ya 'know?"

Of course, I spoke too soon. As soon as I finished speaking, Maniac fired a shot into the street, startling everyone. A stalker hit the ground, bisected by his shotgun. He pumped it, readying the next round, and Arthur turned around as well. I looked back to see the amount of opposition, and I nearly needed a new pair of pants.

I would've been okay with the Husks, the Gorefasts, and the Bloats, as well as a smattering of Clots, but there were five honest-to-goodness Scrakes. One Scrake was a challenge, but three, at the same time, was a death sentence. Five was enough to put an entire 12-man squad in graves, and then some.

"Oy, ma'am, rouse the others, get them out here! We're gonna need some help on this one!"

I looked back to see the girls who were with Scully run into the house, and lights immediately flicker on in the house. Scully ran inside for a moment and came back out with twin knives that he held in a reverse grip. He unlocked the gates and slipped out, coming up to me and nodding.

"So nice to see you on the battlefield you bloody Yank." I couldn't help but smile. Scully was quite the character, and made fighting the abominations quite enjoyable. He sounded like a bad B-movie actor delivering corny lines, but that just made it better somehow.

Arthur began to switch launchers, setting his small one on the curb and pulling his monstrous semi-automatic M234 from the sling on his back, before placing the M79 into the sling and loading the large cylinder with 40mm grenades.

The streetlights illuminated the opposition nicely, and they hadn't seen us yet. Their growls and thumping as they stumbled about grew louder with each passing moment. Scully nudged Arthur.

"Oy, Dent, punch it."

He settled into a steady firing stance, the stock of the launcher against his shoulder, leaning into the gun. He took aim at the group, and unleashed holy hell on the horde. His launchers made very little noise, so they made good weapons to initially engage the enemy with. If they were lucky, it would do enough damage and disorient the enemy enough to allow them to separate a large group into small portions for more efficient elimination.

But in this case, it just blew apart the Husks and Bloats, and made the Scrakes _very_ mad. They were now all charging at us, and we had seconds to run or divert their targets.

JL chucked a glass bottle into the road, which ignited, enveloping the entire group of zeds in flaming chemicals, alighting them and making their very existence a flaming hell.

Scully and Mike were off after the flames dissipated from the ground, running towards the Scrakes that were now attempting to rid themselves of the burning agony, but it was of little use; that shit was like napalm and would need to be scraped off.

I put my pistol away and finally pulled out my M107, checking the ammo count in the magazine. Eight out of ten rounds left, and still on my first mag. Not bad.

Maniac was following up on Mike, his AA12 out and ready. A stalker attempted to come at Mike from the side, and Maniac neatly dispatched it and its' little friend with a single well-placed shot.

By now the Scrakes were coming after us, and Mike put some rounds from his MP5 into them to draw them away from JL and myself. They stopped, looked to him, and started off. Scully ran at them from the side and got a good slice on one with his knives, causing it to slow down and stagger a little, and began to bleed profusely. I took the opportunity to get off a shot in its head, causing it to stumble again, before turning to me. I didn't flinch, watching Scully land another hit, bringing its attention away from me. I started pulling shots on whatever I could, reloading when I ran empty.

JL started moving up from me, with his MAC-10 out. He was lighting up anything that wasn't on fire, and keeping it alight. The smaller threats were burning to a crisp, and he dispatched the rest of the stalkers and Gorefasts that hadn't been minced by Arthur.

A sharp crack came from behind us, and the Scrake we had been beating on dropped dead, a hole in its' head. I looked back, seeing a figure up against the gate wall with an unknown gun in hand. On the opposite side of the gate was a purple-haired girl with a large thick gun, also of unknown origin. They were both steady behind the gate, and more people started coming out of the house to join the fight.

The focused sound of the AA12 hitting flesh set the tone as 3 girls ran out of the house. The blue haired one from before had her sword, and was carrying it high, like a beserker of old. An orange haired girl had a sheathe for a katana, the distinctive hilt jutting out. Last to come into the light of the streetlights was a brunette holding a large cooking knife that didn't shine at all, already covered in blood and guts.

As they ran by me I went back to the unfolding carnage. JL was retreating to me, and the Husks were starting to reorient themselves, forcing Maniac, Arthur, Scully, and the newly arriving combatants to perform a deadly dance with the cannon-wielding zeds. Arthur came running back to me, but not before managing to kill a Husk with an undetonated grenade to the face, which rolled from where it killed the Husk to detonate behind the Scrakes who were still chasing after Mike. Scully was weaving through the mayhem with practiced ease, taking swings at the Scrakes as he dotted around.

The brunette came out of no where and jumped onto one of the Scrakes' backs and lodged her knife deep in the back of its skull, causing it to scream a terrible scream of pain. It started shaking its head and rampaging around the area, but she hung on like a bull rider. I couldn't get a clear shot on the Scrake, so I aimed to the nearest Husk and kindly removed its' head for it, free of charge. I even supplied the materials! At 1600 feet per second, no less.

Maniac came around the Scrake rodeo, dropping an AA12 mag and slotting another one in. The Scrake following Mike stepped on the circular object and tripped, faceplanting into the ground. In an instant, everyone and their brother had targeted it, and gunshots from every direction impacted into the muscular zed, tearing it to pieces. A large nail appeared in its heart, sticking out a good couple of inches.

So that's what the big gun was. A nail gun; it must be pretty useful in times like this. The recoil must suck though...which explains steadying it against a metal gate.

My thoughts and actions were interrupted by the Scrake rodeo, which finally managed to dislodge its' rider. The girl went flying and hit a streetlight, falling to the ground and struggling to get up. The Scrake charged at her, ready to execute her via chainsaw, but the blue haired one came charging out from the whole mess and with an effort heaved the sword up and cleaved the Scrakes' head clean off mid-movement. The sword came back down with a mighty clatter, and the body with a thump. The girl got up, shook her head a bit, retrieved her knife from the seperated head, and ran right back into the meat grinder with apparent glee.

More clots, stalkers and gorefasts were showing up due to the length of the confrontation, and Arthur couldn't engage them due to the number of people around. JL couldn't engage them due to the chance of the fire spreading and jumping to something that wasn't homicidal They settled for assisting Maniac when he stepped back to reload. The street was now beginning to get crowded with remains, and the fight began to move up the street, past the house the new fighters came out of.

Another Husk came out of an alley and almost took out JL, who can't do much damage to them, as they seem to be fireproof, but a bullet took out one of its' legs before it fired its' cannon, sending the rocket at an angle as it fell, hitting the pavement and bouncing, and coming back up to hit a Gorefast in the face right before the short blue-haired girl ran it through with hir greatsword.

JL gave a fistpump and ran off, lobbing another firebomb into a sea of trash zeds that were moving as one towards the girls with the blades. Scully appeared from nowhere once they were ablaze, cleaving through the easily-cut, burning flesh. He downed a dozen Clots and half a dozen Gorefasts in less than a dozen seconds with his double knife swings. But more were still around, and he was off again, a harbinger of doom to the zeds.

I reloaded again, surveying the situation. We had it mostly under control, Maniac and Arthur segregating a large group and taking them out with their weapons, Mike and Scully kiting the remaining Husks, and the new fighters weaving in and out, hitting anything they could. The two girls at the gate were taking potshots at whatever wasn't getting hit already. The one with the pistol didn't seem to be the best shot, but the nails never missed. A headshot every time, in fact. That chest shot seemed to have been intentional, by the looks of it.

Now the fight was down to just two Scrakes and more trash zeds than anything else. A few bloats had begun to make their way up the street, but I dispatched them before they came even close to being a threat to anyone else. Taking out a few more zeds one shot, as always, I stopped to listen. I didn't like what I heard.

Down to the last dozen or so zeds, the sounds of the city could be heard. Including the distinctive metallic grinding of a Fleshpound.

On cue, as soon as the last Scrake took its last breathe on the edge of the flaming-haired girl's katana, a small office building began to collapse, and through the wall came a Fleshpound...in the flesh, unfortunately.

"Everyone, get the hell back!" No one needed being told twice, with everyone up and all but sprinting back towards the house. I moved out into the road to distance myself from the rest; it would be hard to hit when my line of sight was covered in bodies.

Arthur and Maniac were at the tail end of the retreat, and Arthur came out towards me. Half-way to me, he turned around and unloaded, hitting the monstrous beast with 6 High Explosive grenades. The explosions kicked up a cloud of smoke, causing it to be obscured. Then the even-more noticeable –SHIIIING- of the adrenaline pump started up, and the whole squad double timed it back, with the school girls lagging behind, before the FP ripped out of the smoke, charging at an inhuman speed towards the group. Then they ran like bats out of hell, and we went past the house in the other direction, not wanting to let the thing near it.

I was ahead of the rest of us, and managed to turn around and get a few shots in it before having to resume running for my life.

We turned the corner to the next street, which was dark, and continued down it, not caring about whatever was down it; it wasn't as bad as an angry Fleshpound. Halfway down the dark street, the blue-haired girl caught up with and passed me, her enormous sword swinging back and forth. At the intersection, we took another left, now on the next street over from the house. This street was also thankfully lit, but also had a few zeds in it. Clots and Gorefasts, nothing too bad. The speed girl ran right through them, chopping as she went.

Looking behind me, I saw everyone else just barely keeping pace with me. Scully and Mike were holding off the beast, occasionally making hits to it, but mostly faking out the angry colossus enough to allow Arthur and Maniac to not get mauled. We took a left again, almost completing a full circuit to the house. I heard another firebomb hit something, and the Fleshpound let out one of those ghastly yells of pain; looking back, it was on fire and there was blood seeping from multiple points all over its' overly muscled body. I started to pull out my rifle from my back, struggling to get the heft of it out while continuing to run. It weighs almost 30 pounds, you know. This is not a small gun, and isn't for small stuff, either.

I turned around with it hefted up to my shoulder, not even bothering to check the scope. It's pretty hard to miss an elephant with an elephant gun.

I fired once, the immense recoil sending me back an entire step, the round impacting against the Fleshpound with such force that its' pump shattered and liquid spewed everywhere, most of it not even blood. The second round forced me back another step, hitting it in the chest, causing flesh to explode in every direction, some of it even coating Maniac's back as he continued moving. The third round Shattered its' entire cranium, leaving a bubbling mass of meat atop a crushed torso. It finally fell to the ground. The sound of the rifle had temporarily deafened everyone, but it didn't matter; the beast was dead. I sat down, stretching my back; it wasn't advisable to fire a semi-automatic Anti-Material Rifle from a standing position. The M107 wasn't even the most extreme in terms of recoil. I shudder to think about trying to fire an IWS-2000 like that. You'd break something pretty important doing that.

Right after we started to turn onto the road with the house, our hearing started to return to us. I had put my rifle on my back again, holding only a single pistol for defense. The blue-haired girl came up beside me and just kind of looked at me.

"...Why didn't you use that thing on the chainsaw ones?" Oh, so that's what it was. Sure, you have an anti-everything rifle! Why not use it a lot more? Randomly, her voice seems to remind me of a cat's. Odd.

"Well, I only carry 30 rounds for it at once, and I've already used 5 of those today, and the first supply node in our support network isn't going to be stocked until late tomorrow, and it wouldn't do to squander that valuable resource."

She nodded, and I looked to her sword, which seemed to lack a sheathe or any protective covering. It was clean; she had wiped it off on one of the Scrake's rags of a shirt that hadn't been torn to shreds.

"...So what's with the giant sword? Isn't that a little big?" This got a reproachful look from the short girl. Her eyes are emerald green, and did not look impressed.

"I got this from Ayano,'s er, the orange-haired one, if you didn't know, basement. She had this for some reason and never used it, preferring her katana. I'm using it, and I like it a lot, though it is a bit heavy, so I guess you're half right."

I nodded, looking back to the rest of the squad and the other two girls who had come out to help us. Scully and Mike were chatting with Arthur, sounding like they were catching up with the times. JL, Maniac, and the girls were talking about some TV show or something. I didn't get it, but JL and Maniac always did like anime, for whatever reason. I caught the words "Shojo" and "Madoka" from their conversation. Hell if I knew what it was about.

We got to the gate where the two girls were, who opened it for us, and I finally got to see the two who had been taking potshots at the enemy.

The nail gun was being held by a mint-green haired girl, her face expressionless as she opened the gate, and only giving a nod to me as we made our way inside, led by the blue-haired girl, who identified herself as Konata. The pistol was held by a purple-haired girl who looked rather tired, and in truth everyone was; it had been a long day and it was quickly nearing midnight. We were lead to a dining room, where two more girls were seated at the table. The first one was the pink-haired girl with glasses from before, and the second was another lilac-haired girl who looked like she had been crying.

Upon our entry, she sheepishly looked away and left the room through a door away from us, and I looked to Konata.

"What, she doesn't like foreigners?" The short girl leaned on her sword, putting her fingers against each other.

"Not exactly...she had a falling out with her sister today...it's not exactly resolved yet...it'll take time, I think." The other girls nodded and looked at each other; Scully shrugged and put his knives down on the table.

"Now, I know all you lot want introductions and I know all _you _lot want answers as to how I know these dolts, but I think we all need some sleep. Grungies, put your gear on this table, no one will touch it. Let's get some sleep, and we'll deal with this in the morning. Sound like a plan, girls, guys, other?"

Everyone nodded. I didn't like the dolts comment, but I knew he was joking, so I thought nothing of it. I set my rifle on the table with its' bipod out, the barrel pointing at the wall. My dual Desert Eagles went right next to that, the ammo stacked neatly beside it.

Arthur set his launchers on the table and put down the belts of grenades gently, not making a sound.

Maniac set his shotguns down vertically, the AA12 and the M90 both sitting upright on their slides/drum magazines. The sawed-off shotgun was wide enough to not tip over on its' own as well.

JL simply deposited his tiny fire-spewing machine gun, with the safety on of course. Mike dropped his MP5 and MP7 without a word about it; he was nice like that.

The girls all put their guns and swords down as well, and we ended up with a table that looked almost as nice as the interior of a trader's APC. Almost. There were no rocket launchers and...actually, yeah, just that. We needed some FN FAL's as well; every well-armed squad had a rifle jockey with one.

The pink haired girl showed us to an empty room that had blankets thrown into the middle of it. She sighed a little.

"We're sorry we can't provide you with anything more, this house is usually only occupied by two people. We really appreciate your help; we definitely couldn't have handled that...mass of zeds, that's for sure. I don't believe any of you got my name; I'm Miyuki Takara, and this is my family's house."

She bowed as the squad settled down, and I walked out of the room with her. She turned as she realized I was there, but I just said, "Thanks for putting up with us; I can't imagine this is easy for any of you."

She turned back to walk back into the depths of the house, shrugging, and saying as she walked away, "No, I suppose it's not, but we're a lot tougher than we look...and we need to be, to get out of this alive, hm?"

Truer words couldn't have been said.

**A/N: Holy shit. 8,600 words of story. That's what happens when I don't update for a while; I'm writing a long-ass chapter. I stretched the new update to KF a bit; you can't carry anything except the AMR sniper with a Sharpshooter, but dual Handcannons isn't really going to break the game. Changed it from an M99 to an M107 because DayZ, and becuase it's a plot point. **_**Plot point.**_** The reason the FP takes so much punishment is because I'm taking this as the equivalent of 12-man HoE. And that's a lot of punishment for the big baddies. Or why a grenade wouldn't just wipe out all the Clots ever. **

**Hope y'all liked the intro of DoubleBoxEven's OC's, and I hope he likes them too. Arthur Dent's origin story is fridge logic at it's finest, and the whole fight scene was written at 3 A.M., so it might be gold, and it might be shit. **

**This is the longest chapter for anything I've published, but for anyone looking forward to an update to Just When, that's even longer...and more crazy.**

So yeah, hope you enjoyed, it would be cool if you reviewed, and make sure to aim for the head!


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